dcn@ihuxl.UUCP (Dave Newkirk) (10/25/86)
At 6:31 a cry came over the radio circuit from inside the capsule: "There is a fire in here." Stunned, pad leader Babbitt looked up from his desk and shouted to Gleaves: "Get them out of there!" As Babbitt spun to reach a squawk box to notify the blockhouse, a sheet of flame flashed from the spacecraft. Then he was hurtled toward the door by a concussion. In an instant of terror, Babbitt, Gleaves, Reece and Clemmons fled. In seconds they rushed back, and Reece and Clemmons seached the area for gas masks and fire extinguishers to fight little patches of flame. All four men, choking and gasping in dense smoke, ran in and out of the enclosure, attempting to remove the spacecraft's hatches. Meanwhile, Propst' television picture showed a bright glow inside the spacecraft, followed by flames flaring around the window. For about three minutes, he recalled, the flames increased steadily. Before the room housing the spacecraft filled with smoke, Propst watched with horror as silver-clad arms behind the window fumbled for the hatch. "Blow the hatch, why don't they blow the hatch?" he cried. He did not know until later that the hatch could not be opened explosively. Elsewhere, Slayton and Roosa watched a television monitor, aghast, as smoke and fire billowed up. Roosa tried and tried to break the communications barrier with the spacecraft, and Slayton shouted furiously for the two physicians in the blockhouse to hurry to the pad. In the clean room, despite the intense heat, Babbit, Gleaves, Reece, Hawkins and Clemmons, now joined by Rogers, continued to fight the flames. From time to time, one or another would have to leave to gasp for air. One by one, they removed the booster cover cap and the outer and inner hatches - prying out the last one five and a half minutes after the alarm first sounded. By now, several more workers had joined the rescue attempt. At first, no one could see the astronauts through the smoke, only feel them. There were no signs of life. By the time the firemen arrived five minutes later, the air had cleared enough to disclose the bodies. Chaffe was still strapped in his couch, but Grissom and White were so intertwined below the hatch sill it was hard to tell which was which. ... After the autopsies were finished, the coroner reported that the deaths were accidental, resulting from asphyxiation caused by the inhalation of toxic gases. The crew did have second and third degree burns, but these were not severe enough to have caused the deaths. ... NASA had always feared that, in manned space flight, danger to pilots could increase with each succeeding program. ... Man was fallible; and a host of editorial cartoons reiterated this axiom for several months after the fire. One, by Paul Conrad in the Los Angeles Times, showed the spectre of death clothed in a spacesuit holding a Mercury spacecraft in one hand, a Gemini in the other, and with the smouldering Apollo in the background. It was captioned, "I thought you knew, I've been aboard on every flight." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From "Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft", NASA SP-4205, available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, stock number 033-000-00768-0. -- Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn