January 27, 1967
3 astronauts dead in Apollo launchpad explosion [1]
"This is a CBS News Special Report.
This is Mike Wallace at the CBS Newsroom in New York. America’s first three Apollo astronauts were trapped and killed by a flash fire that swept their moon-ship early tonight during a launchpad test at Cape Kennedy in Florida.
Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, 40 years old, one of original Mercury astronauts, the first American astronaut to go twice into space. Edward White, 36 years old, the first American to walk into space. And Rookie astronaut Roger Chafee, 31 years old, training for his first spaceflight, Apollo 1, scheduled for February 21st.
These three astronauts were aboard their spaceship 10 minutes from a simulated liftoff at Cape Kennedy when the fire hit at about 6:30 tonight. They were inside their spaceship, pressurized, buttoned-up inside their spacesuits when the fire hit. A closed circuit television camera was relaying pictures of the astronauts lying on their backs inside the spacecraft atop the two-stage Saturn-1. There was a flash and that was it, according to a NASA spokesman watching the television screen in the blockhouse a few hundred yards away from Launchpad 34. The screen went blank and he said that there was no communication from the astronauts. They died silently and apparently swiftly. Their bodies have been left in the spacecraft, according to the latest information from Cape pending an investigation into the disaster.
President Johnson tonight mourned the death of three astronauts, he said they gave their lives in the nation’s service. Our brave men in uniform, whether in Vietnam or seeking the frontiers of the future, he said, mourn with all of us, the tragic loss of 3 gallant and dedicated airmen."