- Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, the
astronaut slated to be the first man to walk on the moon, was murdered,
his son has charged in the Feb. 16 edition of Star magazine.
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- In another stunning development, a lead
NASA investigator has charged that the agency engaged in a cover-up of
the true cause of the catastrophe that killed Grissom and two other astronauts.
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- The tabloid exclusive by Steve Herz reports
that Scott Grissom, 48, has gone public with the family's long-held belief
that their father was purposefully killed during Apollo I.
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- The Jan. 27, 1967, Apollo I mission was
a simulated launch in preparation for an actual lunar flight.
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- NASA concluded that the Apollo I deaths
of Grissom, as well as astronauts Edward H. White and Roger Chafee, were
the result of an explosive fire that burst from the pure oxygen atmosphere
of the space capsule. NASA investigators could not identify what caused
the spark, but wrote the catastrophe off as an accident.
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- "My father's death was no accident.
He was murdered," Grissom, a commercial pilot, told Star.
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- Grissom said he recently was granted
access to the charred capsule and discovered a "fabricated" metal
plate located behind a control panel switch. The switch controlled the
capsulesí electrical power source from an outside source to the
ship's batteries. Grissom argues that the placement of the metal plate
was an act of sabotage. When one of the astronauts toggled the switch to
transfer power to the ship's batteries, a spark was created that ignited
a fireball.
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- Clark Mac Donald, a McDonnell-Douglas
engineer hired by NASA to investigate the fire, offered corroborating evidence.
Breaking more than three decades of silence, Mac Donald says he determined
that an electrical short caused by the changeover to battery power had
sparked the fire.
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- He says that NASA destroyed his report
and interview tapes in an effort to stem public criticism of the space
program.
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- "I have agonized for 31 years about
revealing the truth, but I didnít want to hurt NASAís image
or cause trouble,î Mac Donald told the paper. "But I canít
let one more day go by without the truth being known."
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- Grissom's widow, Betty, now 71, told
Star she agrees with her son's claim that her husband had been murdered.
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- "I believe Scott has found the key
piece of evidence to prove NASA knew all along what really happened but
covered up to protect funding for the race to the moon.î
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- Scott Grissom told Star that the motive
for his fatherís killing may have been related to NASA's desire
not have his father be the first man to walk on the moon because of criticism
leveled at Grissom in 1961 after his Gemini capsule, Liberty 7, sunk in
the Atlantic.
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- Critics of Grissom, including novelist
Tom Wolfe, have claimed the astronaut panicked when his space capsule landed
in the ocean, and he prematurely pulled an explosive charge to open the
shipís hatch, causing it to sink.
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- Fellow astronauts, however, gave Grissom
the benefit of the doubt for several reasons. Grissom was a decorated Korean
War pilot who had flown nearly 100 combat missions. He was a courageous
man not known to panic.
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- There was also evidence that the explosive
device on the hatch could accidentally blow without being pulled -- a fact
that led NASA to remove such devices from future spacecraft.
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- Also, had Grissom pulled the explosive
release on the hatch, his hand or arm should have had powder and bruise
marks. Neither were found.
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- Grissom, one of the original Mercury
seven, was the senior astronaut when the Apollo missions began.
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- Among the astronauts, Grissom was the
most critical of the problem-plagued Apollo program, and the main Apollo
contractor, North American Aviation.
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- Shortly before his death, Grissom had
taken a large lemon and hung it around the space capsule as the press looked
on. He had suggested publicly that the project could never be accomplished
on time.
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- The Associated Press reported, "
Pretty slim" was the way [Grissom] put his Apollo's chances of meeting
its mission requirements.
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- The Grissom family had reason to doubt
the official NASA ruling from the beginning. Even before Apollo I, Grissom
had received death threats which his family believed emanated from within
the space program.
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- The threats were serious enough that
he was put under Secret Service protection and had been moved from his
home to a secure safehouse.
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- According to his wife, Grissom had warned
her that "if there is ever a serious accident in the space program,
it's likely to be me."
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- The Apollo I disaster led to a series
of congressional hearings into the incident and NASA. During the hearings,
one launch pad inspector, Thomas Baron, sharply criticized NASA's handling
of the incident and testified that the astronauts attempted to escape the
capsule earlier than officially claimed.
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- Baron was fired soon after giving the
testimony, and died, along with his wife, when his car was struck by a
train. Authorities ruled the deaths as suicide.
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- During the congressional hearings, Sen.
Walter Mondale questioned the efficacy of manned space programs. Manned
space flights were opposed by many of the leading space scientists at the
time, including Drs. James Van Allen and Thomas Gold.
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