The Apollo One Disaster | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror

[Music] on the 27th of january 1967 a disaster during a routine test launch at the cape kennedy air force station launch complex in florida put america's space program on hold not only would the accident claim several lives but it would also forever change the way in which nasa operated and attitudes towards space flight across the country senator john f kennedy became president of the united states in 1960 a big part of his campaign had been focused on demonstrating america's superiority over the soviet union including in the area of space exploration now that he'd won the presidency kennedy had to deliver tangible results the drive to beat the soviets became all the more urgent when in 1961 soviet astronaut yuri gagarin became the first ever person to fly into space in the same year president kennedy set out an ambitious goal america would send a man to the moon and return them safely to earth and all before the end of the 1960s it was down to nasa the national aeronautics and space administration to figure out exactly how this could be done from 1961 to 1966 the organization worked hard to lay the groundwork for a moon landing the mercury and gemini series of missions tested how the human body would react in space developed technical procedures and successfully launched several one and two-person flights into space by the beginning of 1967 nasa's apollo program was set to complete its first crewed mission at this point there were only three years left until the deadline set by president kennedy this mission initially called apollo saturn 204 but later renamed to apollo 1 was set to orbit the earth it was to be crewed by three of nasa's astronauts commander virgil gus grissom senior pilot ed white and pilot roger b chaffee commander gus grissom had already made his mark as america's second person in space in 1960 as part of the earlier mercury program and had also been the first nasa astronaut to fly into space twice pilot ed white was also a veteran nasa crew member before joining the apollo 1 project white had been the first american to walk in space in 1965. apollo 1 was set to be pilot roger chaffee's first space flight assignment however he too had many years of experience supporting nasa's space programmes the apollo 1 spacecraft was far larger and more complex than its predecessors and in the lead-up to the planned launch on february 21st 1967 there were several setbacks and test failures the crew were painfully aware of these and even joked about them by sending a photograph of them praying to the mission's office manager with the caption it isn't that we don't trust you joe but this time we've decided to go over your head similarly when commander grissom was asked about the possibility of failure on the mission during an interview he responded you sort of have to put that out of your mind there's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure of course this can happen on any flight it can happen on the last one as well as the first one so you just plan as best you can to take care of all these eventualities and you get a well-trained crew and you go fly on the morning of the 27th of january the three crew members set off to complete a routine simulated launch test the men fully clad in their spacesuits made their way to the tower at launchpad 34 and crossed the catwalk to their command module the early stages of the launch test did not go smoothly at 1pm the three astronauts reported that their oxygen smelled foul something which put the countdown on hold while the issue was investigated in the end no cause for the smell could be found and the test was resumed after a delay of more than an hour as they would on launch day the astronauts and their ground crew sealed the three hatch locking system and the craft was pressurized once the crew was sealed inside however issues with the communication system became evident at 5 40 pm the simulated countdown was put on hold again to investigate these issues grissom could be heard saying how are we going to get to the moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings by around 6 30 pm the countdown remained at t-minus 10 minutes the crew exhausted after a long day of delays and communication failures were running through their checklists to pass the time when the module experienced a momentary power search seconds later at 6 31 pm multiple calls of fire were heard from the three astronauts on board flames and smoke from the fire spilled over onto the launch pad as the rapidly rising temperature and pressure within the module caused the outer hull to crack after just five seconds the crew's shouts of alarm became cries of pain engineers watched as smoke filled the command module obscuring the view offered by cameras inside the module one of the last things they saw was white struggling to release the module's complicated hatch system from the inside workers at the launch pad rushed to the scene to open the hatch from the outside but were forced back the billowing smoke reduced visibility to zero and when rescuers donned smoke masks to help them breathe they found that these vital pieces of equipment were faulty and didn't fully exclude the toxic smoke because of this and because of the complexity of the locking mechanism it took rescuers five long minutes to access the capsule by the time they did it was too late all three astronauts within had passed away after the fire had been controlled and the scene had been documented grissom white and chaffey's remains were taken for examination by u.s air force pathologists all three men had died as a result of asphyxia whilst their burns were thought to have been survivable the fire had produced lethal amounts of carbon monoxide and other toxic gases this catastrophic loss of life had a significant impact on the entire apollo program how could a routine low-risk simulation have left three astronauts dead in the days following the fire nasa's flight director gene krantz told his team we did not do our job we were rolling the dice hoping that things would come together by launch day when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle we were too gung-ho about the schedule and we blocked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work every element of the program was in trouble and so were we a review board led by the director of nasa's langley research center in virginia floyd l thompson was established to determine the cause of the fire after two months they released a three thousand page report detailing their findings whilst no definitive source of the fire was identified it was determined that damaged wiring underneath grissom's couch was a possible cause a spark from these wires in the pressurized oxygen-rich environment of the command module would have created a rapidly spreading fire the fire was believed to have been further fueled by the larger than allowable amount of flammable materials covering the spacecraft's interior things like nylon netting foam pads and velcro in addition to the possible cause of the fire the review board found that the three-piece hatch system used to seal the cabin was far too complex the innermost door took 90 seconds to open in ideal conditions although the apollo 1 crew had never managed to open it this quickly during their training with a fire in the module opening the hatch would have been all but impossible the fire placed the apollo program on pause and the review's findings led to many essential changes to improve the program's safety the block one spacecraft that had been used up until the fire was retired and replaced with the improved block 2 design this design included an outward opening quick release hatch to allow for easier exit in an emergency the cabin's atmosphere was also adjusted to be less oxygen rich and the flammable materials were replaced with non-flammable and self-extinguishing alternatives two years after the fire on the 16th of july 1969 the apollo program achieved the goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade in reference to the apollo 11 landing krantz nasa's flight director would go on to say the ultimate success of apollo was made possible by the sacrifices of grissom white and chaffee the accident profoundly affected everyone in the programme there was an unspoken promise on everyone's part to the three astronauts that their deaths would not be in vain in memory of the men who lost their lives in the fire the apollo 11 astronauts neil armstrong and buzz aldrin left a mission patch marked with the names of grissom white and chaffee on the surface of the moon where it remains to this day you

Channel: Fascinating Horror

Views: 980,242

Keywords: ASMR, ASMR Horror, Horror, True Horror, Horror Story, Horror Stories, Horror Storytelling, Storytelling, Seconds From Disaster, Strange But True, Unsolved Mystery, Ride Accident, Theme Park Accident, Worst Accidents, Creepy, Creepypasta, True Creepypasta, Creepypasta Stories, I Survived, History, Documentary, Disaster Documentary, True Story, Apollo, NASA, NASA History, Space Race, Space Program, Space Programme, Space History, Mercury, Gemini, Grissom, White, Chaffee, Shuttle Fire

Id: 3DV7cVJHUh4

Length: 10min 22sec (622 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 02 2022