Remembering The Apollo 1 Tragedy, Obsession To The Moon That Killed Three Astronauts

Three astronauts for NASA's Apollo 1/DOC mission

JAKARTA The United States (NASA) Aeronautics and Space Agency is very ambitious in its Moon landing mission. This mission has been around for decades, to be precise since the 1960s.

Like the Artemis mission, the second landing program on the Moon, NASA is actively testing the technology they will use to hit the Moon. NASA also included astronauts in the flight test.

Therefore, NASA held a test for the Apollo 1 mission, formerly called Apollo 204, which was scheduled to launch on February 21, 1967. A month before the launch, on January 27, NASA held a test-pre-flight at Cape Kennedy.

In the plug-out test, Lt. Col. Virgil I.men, Lt. Col. Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee, as astronauts for Apollo 204 (US-204), were included. They enter into the fuelless Command Module Capsule.

The three astronauts entered the capsule at 13.00 p.m. local time, but due to a number of minor problems, testing was delayed by several hours. At around 17.40 p.m., the countdown was finally carried out due to a communication failure.

At 18.30, Astronauts began complaining about the difficulty of communication. However, one minute later, AC 2 bus tension soared and indicated a short relationship so that the cockpit footage became difficult to interpret.

While it was difficult to receive communication from the three astronauts, one of the astronauts called for the word fire. Two seconds later, White called for a fire in the cockpit and Chaffee confirmed that the capsule was experiencing a severe fire.

The screams of these three astronauts were heard before communication was cut off. Unfortunately, the Apollo Pala was difficult to open from outside so NASA technicians took about five minutes to open the door. Unfortunately, the astronauts have been dead since 30 seconds of the fire.

The very rapid spread of fire occurs because the cabin has a pure oxygen atmosphere at normal pressure. The fire spreads so fast that astronauts do not have the opportunity to open the hatch door from within.

Due to this incident, the Apollo program had to be postponed. NASA has investigated the source of the problem and concluded that sparks arise from short circuitd cables. The cabin contains many flammable items so these three astronauts cannot survive.

After the incident occurred, NASA changed the name Apollo 204 to Apollo 1. This name change was made in honor of the three astronauts. NASA has also always held a tribute event for the Apollo 1 mission.

Usually, this event is held on Thursday in the fourth week of January. This year, NASA held a commemoration ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia on Thursday, January 25, and laid a wreath at the Tomb of Unknown Soldiers.

In addition, NASA also held a large town hall meeting or meeting without a hierarchy at NASA Headquarters on Tuesday, January 23. At the event, they discussed the importance of safety to achieve mission success.