_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [52]
Neither Howard Benedict nor myself felt easy. NASA refused us permission to cover the test, and just before Gus slipped feet first into Apollo 1, his backup, Wally Schirra, stopped him. Wally hated that damn hatch. He had been arguing all along that it should have been built with a quick-opening explosive mechanism that operated instantly, like those in Mercury. To Wally, Apollo 1’s hatch was fashioned from overtime stupidity. It was double-hulled. It had to be opened manually, and to escape in an emergency it was necessary to open both hulls and then release a third hatch protecting Apollo during liftoff. Engineers had designed it that way to avoid an accidental loss of the hatch en route to the moon or during the punishing reentry, when Apollo would come blazing back to Earth at more than 24,000 miles per hour.
Veteran astronaut Gus Grissom suits up for the Apollo launch-pad test that would end his life. (NASA).
“Listen to me, Gus,” Wally told his friend. “It’ll take you a minute and a half, possibly two, to get all those hatches open. If you have a problem, even if your fucking nose itches, get the hell out. Make sure they solve the problem before you get back in. Got it?”
“Got it,” Gus nodded and smiled. “Thanks, buddy.”
“We’re ready to get with the count.” That from the blockhouse speakers told every person connected with the rehearsal to get with it.
The lights flashed, the clocks ticked, and the countdown moved through the “plugs out” test—meaning Apollo and the Saturn would stand alone, would operate on their own internal power, with no help from outside.
The launch team was verifying that everything, except fueling and actual launching, would work in a symphony.
The three astronauts, in their full spacesuits and strapped inside Apollo 1, were following the script. Gus Grissom was in the left seat, Ed White in the center, and Roger Chafee on the right.
No one saw it; no one knew just when it came to life.
Somewhere beneath the seat of commander Gus Grissom, an open wire chafed. Insulation was worn and torn. The wire, alive with electrical power, lay bare in a thick soup of 100 percent oxygen—one of the most dangerous and corrosive gases known. Exposed to an ignition source, it is extremely flammable. It had been used in the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft without trouble.
But this much pure oxygen inside a ship as large as Apollo was another story.
Gus Grissom shifted his body for comfort.
His seat moved the bare wire.
It sparked.
INSTANT FIRE!
Flames filled Apollo 1, feeding on the oxygen-soaked materials surrounding the astronauts.
The launch team froze before its television monitors. Muscles stiffened; voices in the blockhouse ceased in mid-sentence. No one knew what he or she was witnessing. It was something horrifying and unbelievable. Flames rampaging inside Apollo 1—a whirlwind of fire raging and burning everything it touched.
The medical readings showed Ed White’s pulse rate jump off the charts—showed the three astronauts burst into instant movement.
The first call from Apollo 1 smashed into the launch team’s headsets.
“Fire!”
One word from Ed White.
Then, the unmistakable deep voice of Gus Grissom.
“I’ve got a fire in the cockpit!”
Instantly afterward, Roger Chaffee’s voice:
“Fire!”
Then a garbled transmission, and then the final plea:
“Get us out!”
Then words no one would ever understand, followed by a scream and—
Silence.
In the blockhouse, Deke Slayton jumped from his chair, shouting, “What the hell’s happening?”
Eyes stared in horror at the monitors. Flames expanded swiftly, building to a white glare before subsiding, and Deke thought he saw a shadow moving inside. He couldn’t be sure, but then he saw bright orange flames flickering about Apollo 1’s hatch.
Hellish