I am a bit confused about the designation of the space flight of Grissom, White, and Chaffee, in early 1967.
My understanding is this: The first manned Mercury mission (Alan Shepard’s flight) was Mercury-Redstone 3; numbers 1 and 2 were unmanned. The first manned Gemini mission (Grisson and Young) was Gemini 3; numbers 1 and 2 were unmanned.
Similarly, several unmanned Apollo flights were planned, and had already flown in 1966. See, for example, AS-201 and AS-202. I understand that the first manned flight was officially called “Apollo 204”, and I can find no indication that the Review Board which investigated the 1967 Apollo 1 fire was named anything other than the “Apollo 204 Accident Review Board”.
All the above notwithstanding, it also seems that the crew had permission to refer to the flight as “Apollo 1”, and a flight patch with that name was designed. But I get the impression that this was very unofficial, and that there was never any official recognition of this name until after the January 1967 fire, when NASA retroactively named the flight as “Apollo 1”.
My question is this: Did anyone actually call it “Apollo 1” prior to the fire, and if so, why? On the day of the fire, were they actually wearing the “Apollo 1” patch? Why would they have changed the already-traditional numbering which includes the unmanned flights? Why would anyone have insisted on pretending that it was the first Apollo capsule to leave Earth?
Here are the thoughts which led me to ask the above:
In 1998, HBO produced a miniseries titled “From the Earth to the Moon”, which was widely praised for its historical accuracy. Episode 2 was titled “Apollo One”, and contains two scenes which suggest that “Apollo 1” was indeed an officially recognized name even prior to the fire, and I’m wondering whether they took dramatic license, or whether maybe I’ve misunderstood it all along.
The first is at about 05:22 on the DVD, showing events prior to the fire, where the astronauts and controllers were having a great deal of difficulty communicating with each other. Someone (presumably the CapCom) asked the astronauts, “Apollo 1, how do you read?” He repeated this, and then asked a third time, with the exact same words.
Towards the end of that episode, at about 55:51, we see Deke Slayton speaking with the wives, and one of them tells him, “I got a call from some woman at NASA, Deke. They say they don’t wanna call it Apollo 1 any more, because it never flew. They’re gonna call it Apollo two-oh-…” And Deke says, “204. That was the internal designation.”
I guess what I’m hoping is that perhaps someone can produce a transcript which will show whether or not the CapCom might really have used the words, “Apollo 1, how do you read?”
