Remembering Apollo 1

On January 27, 1967, Apollo 1's crew--Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee--was killed when a fire erupted in their capsule during testing. Apollo 1 was originally designated AS-204 but following the fire, the astronauts' widows requested that the mission be remembered as Apollo 1 and following missions would be numbered subsequent to the flight that never made it into space.






Image credit: NASA 

For those of us old enough to remember, this was a horrific moment. It reminded us how dangerous was the irresistible romance of exploration. And for a moment, our dreams were consumed on that launch pad. But the human spirit is remarkable and the endeavor went on. My the memories of the Apollo 1 crew encourage our dreams to soar - and may we make a world down here as awesome as the world in space that they dared to explore.