Most of know the tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire at the launch complex on January 27, 1967. My question is this: if Apollo 1 had launched on schedule on February 21, 1967, with the fire occurring in space how long a postponement would there have been to the ultimate landing on the moon?
I wrote postponement because it’s difficult for me at least, to image that the historical schedule would have held, or accelerated. The shock of the space capsule orbiting the earth hour after hour, day-by-day, week-by-week with the remains of three astronauts would have been gut wrenching and would have caused consternation to say the least. On top of that, I sure NASA would have taken educated guesses on the cause of the fire, but they obviously wouldn’t have the actual capsule to study.
I’m sure there’s been conjecture on this but I’ve never seen it. Any thoughts?
Fighting the hypothetical here, but had the fire started in space, it may have not caused the deaths of the crew- Apollo 1 was pressurized to 16.7psi of pure oxygen on the pad (to maintain positive pressure relative to the atmosphere) but it was only designed to use 5psi in space.
Which brings up the follow-up questions - how bad was the fire, did it fully disable most electronics and controls? (I assume it did). If so, how long would the craft have orbited before rentry? How likely would it be that there was any data left on reentry to provide clues as to what happened? Would they have even known it was a fire? How fast could they have put their helmets on? Then what?
(NM I also seem to recall reading there was almost a minute of yelling and noise before the astronauts died.)
I don’t see why it would be any different. Three of America’s best and brightest dead is the same either way. Why would it matter if they died in orbit versus on the pad?
On the pad, they had the benefit of in depth analysis of the cause and effects. A mysterious fire in orbit likely would have made diagnosis of the problem more difficult, especially if the capsule tubled and so burned up on reentry? It would appear too that the most likely flash point would have been during liftoff when the pure oxygen pressure was still high. They found a large number of issues needing resolution.
I don’t know how old you are, or how this was covered in Canada or elsewhere in the world, but I was 11 at the time, and I can assure you it got an enormous amount of coverage and attention in the States.
Happening in space would have added a level of mystery and gruesomeness if the capsule continued orbiting for some time, but I don’t think it would, or could, have gotten significantly more attention.
As mentioned above, the use of pure oxygen at 5PSI is fine. The ‘failure of imagination’ was that no one thought that doing a dry run on Erth woth pure oxygen, which necessrily had to be at higher than ambient pressure, would basicaly turn anything flammable into a torch if there was any ignition source at all…
Had the same ignition sources been triggered in orbit, nothing much would have happened. Maybe a blown fuse of a shorted out component but not a conflagration.