It was also determined the capsule door design made rescue difficult. And that crew escape had not been adequately considered. Announcer this is a cbs news special report. Mike wallace this is mike wallace at the cbs newsroom in new york. Americas first three apollo astronauts were trapped and killed by a flash fire early tonight during a launchpad test at cape kennedy in florida. Virgil gus griffin, 40 years old, one of the original mercury astronaut. The First American astronaut to go twice into space. Edward white, 36 years old. The First American to walk in space. And rookie astronaut roger chaffee, 31 years old, training for his first spaceflight apollo one scheduled february 21. These three astronauts were aboard for 10 minutes before off imulated lift for a simulated lift off when the fire hit at about 6 30 tonight. They were inside the spaceship, pressurized, buttoned up inside their spacesuits with a fire hit. A closed Circuit Television camera with relaying pictures of the astronauts on their backs inside the spacecraft atop the twostage saturn there was a one. Flash and that was it, according to a nasa spokesperson watching the Television Screen in the block house a few hundred hours away from the launchpad. The screen went blank, and he said 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 the cape, pending an investigation into the disaster. President johnson tonight mourned the death of the three astronauts saying they gave their lives in the nations service. Our brave men in uniform, whether in vietnam or seeking the frontiers of the future, mourn will all of us the tragic loss of three gallant and dedicated airmen. This film was shot about 10 days ago down at cape kennedy. At the time of another test for the apollo spacecraft in a saturn one rocket. Roger chaffee, the rookie astronaut, there are the three of them, gus grissom on the left and ed white. Grissom, 40 years old, the father of two teenage boys. One of the original mercury astronauts. This is ed white. And this roger chaffee, lieutenant in the United States navy, 31 years old, preparing for his first spaceflight. He was the rookie. Chaffee, born in grand rapids, michigan, he was like gus grissom, a graduate of Purdue University the father of two , small children. Ed white, 36 years old, white, 36 years old the father , of two children, born in san antonio, texas, a graduate of west point. Gus, from indiana, a graduate of Purdue University. With me here in the cbs newsroom is robert wessler, the executive of the cbs news space unit. Bob, i wonder if you would tell us a little bit about the rocket and the spacecraft. Certainly, mike. This is a saturn one b rocket, also referred to as an operated saturn rocket. This lower portion i will separate them for you. This is the first stage, second stage. This is not a vehicle that will eventually take u. S. Astronauts to the moon. This is an interim rocket that will be using for the next couple of flights. What i have in my hand now is where the accident occurred this afternoon. This is the launch escape tower. If this had happened on a launch day, prior to flight, an abort such as occurred today, the thought here would have been that the launch escape tower would have taken the spacecraft. This is the command module where the three astronauts actually fly. Would have taken them safely away from any blowups. However, the type of accident that occurred today, this was an internal fire in here caused by oxygen, which we will talk about in a second. Mike may we look at the larger model over here . Robert certainly. This is the same thing we were talking about, this is three times the size. Markup that we have here. This is the command module. This is where the astronauts were today. This is the service module. This is where the fuels and the Electrical Systems are housed. They are engineered in here. The spacecraft today was in a fully pressurized system. This means 100 oxygen. The speculation tonight, again, i must say it is speculation only, is that there was some electrical problem, possibly with plastic wires or something. Of that nature, but this is speculation, purely. That an electrical shortcircuit occurred. I think everyone knows what would happen in the event of an electrical shortcircuit in a 100 oxygen state. That is our speculation at the moment, mike. Mike wallace the three men were to have gone up 21st for a 14 day. Robert that is right. Upwards of two weeks. Our guess was 10 or 11 days. Mike wallace and the latest news from cape kennedy and the Houston Space Center is that the flight of apollo i has been postponed indefinitely. The hallmark of americas Space Program since the mercury launch, as all of us americans know has been its openness. The conscientious effort to let the American People share in this incredible adventure. Among the regular preparations for each new spaceflight, beginning with mercury through all of the gemini series and now this one, apollo, apollo i, there have been a series of advanced interviews with the astronauts involved. A few weeks ago down at the mancraft center in houston, gus grisham, ed white, Robert Chaffee sat down with nelson benton. And they talked about the mission which ended in flames on pad 34 tonight. We begin with gus grissoms description of the apollo one spacecraft. Gus grisham a steam vent line and a lot of electronics and things around the outside. As i flip this part of the structure here, we can see the interior. You can see the three of us in our positions, on the left side, center, Robert Chaffee on the right. Down below each of these two outer stations are other stations. And then the seats move forward a little bit. This gives us a lot of standing room down in this area here. The area you are looking at here is the navigation station. The sextant and telescope are down there, and the computer, and the basic guidance and navigation is down there. If you can look up into this area, you will see this is the main estimate panel. Most of the systems and their monitoring instruments are from this over. Watchoger has those to during launch. This station is our primary watch station during orbit. We normally always have a man in the station. Again, some of this intersection is taken up with guidance and navigation instruments and facilities for ed. And then the left side is the primary flight station for the the gyroscope, eightball and all of the instruments and switches to make our sps burns. Spacecrafts can be flown from , actually flown from all three pilot positions. Gus grissom yes, as far as the flight controls themselves are concerned, we can move it from the left to the right station or even down to the lower equipment day if we need to. We have two of them on board also. That is sort of a quick tour, about as good as this model allows i guess. Usually one mercury. You flew on gemini. Now you are flying on apollo. Does the law of averages as far as catastrophic failure bother you at all, sir . Gus grissom . No. It is always best to put that out of your mind. There is always the possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure. It could happen on any flight. Is good happen on the last one as well is the first one. You just plan as best you can to take care of all of these eventualities. You get a welltrained crew. You go fly. The spacecraft you are going to write on is, to a certain extent untried. ,you are taking shakedown now. Do you approach it with any apprehension as opposed to the gemini which you flew before . Gus grissom no, i dont think so. I think you have to understand the feeling that the pilot has and a test pilot has. I look forward, a great deal to the first flight. There is a great deal of pride involved in making a first light. I think i am looking forward to the flight with a great deal of anticipation. Is there anything scary about a first spaceflight, even though you have flown many hours in conventional aircraft, jet aircraft . Robert chafee i dont like to say anything scary about it. There are a lot of unknowns. There are a lot of problems that could develop, and they have to be solved, that is what we are therefore. There for. This is our business. I dont think it will be probably a whole lot worse than the guy that is making a first test flight on a new airplane. I have never done that. So i dont know. I think everybody feels a little apprehensive when they are counting down. I dont see how you cant help but be a little bit excited. I dont think how anybody is i dont like to use the word scary. I definitely think you are apprehensive, and youre thinking about it. But you know how to handle it, and take care of it, and do the job. The flight you are about to take is another step towards the moon. Could you philosophize on why you think we should go to the moon . Ed white i think there is so many reasons why we should. I guess some of my special reasons, i will give to you. I think one of the ones that a lot of people forget about is lunar influence that the program has on our raising of young people in the country. I think our most prime responsibility is to provide an environment so that our children will be able to grow up and be creative, useful, and good citizens. And i think the Space Program, more so than anything we have done in the past, has given a stimulus to the young people, the very Young Children even. And a goal for them and a purpose for them to educate themselves as well as they can, to their own capability. And they have, even though they are not going to all be astronauts, but they start with a certain goal when they are young. And if the goal is properly directed, these young people, i think, have much more of a chance of becoming useful and welleducated citizens who will take care of you and i when we get older, and we dont have the capability to direct the world. The young people will run our world for us when we get older. This is one of the things i feel the most strongly about. But i also feel that and this is from just a standpoint of man i think that if a civilization, if our country becomes so obsessed with making the country easy for us to live in and making our surroundings so comfortable that we are in in spending and never to and ever descending spiral within ourselves. If we do not try to expand ourselves and horizons, which i think the Space Program is the biggest example of expanding your horizons that man has ever undertaken, we are not going to progress as a nation. And probably the more practical viewpoint, i think, it provides a great opportunity for just plain stimulating our industry. Which feeds back into making the comfort items that go back into making living good too. So i think from all standpoints it is a good program. Why we want to go to the moon specifically, well, it is the closest thing we have not explored to our earth. And is the first step to understanding the whole universe. Mike wallace after not ed white, the First American to walk in space aboard that famed flight aboard the gemini series with his command pilot. At 10 30 tonight eastern time, rescue teams began to remove the bodies of the three astronauts from the charred spacecraft perched 200 feet above launch pad 34. A nasa spokesman said the dead astronauts were left in the ship for four hours to aid the investigation into the tragedy. As i said, two of the three astronauts who died tonight aboard the apollo had already flown in space, both made history. 1965, the man you have just been listening to ed , white, climbed out of the hatch of gemini for and became the First American to ride into space, clad in a space suit. Here is that historic flight described by ed white, himself. Actually,this is looks like the egress. What i have tried to do is fly, to actually fly with a gun or maneuver with a gun right out of a spacecraft. When i departed the spacecraft this time, there was no pushoff whatsoever from the spacecraft. The gun actually provided the impulse for me to leave the spacecraft. The first time i tried to come out, there i go. I am leaving, and is under the influence of the gun. I am trying to maneuver over to my left, in front of jims window. I was approximately down the centerline of the spacecraft, perhaps a little right. The gun is actually providing the impulse for my maneuvers. Right now i am actually working with the tether only. Im not working with the gun, it ran out after my first actually, my second translation in front of the spacecraft. This is with the time i made the statement, i sure wish i had a little bit more fuel for my gun. It was pretty interesting though. I didnt mind getting back on the adapter section. I was able to actually take a look at the thruster areas. The plumes that jim was trying to stabilize the spacecraft with. They looked the way mr. Chamberlain told me they would. They came out about a foot and a half or two feet from the spacecraft. Listed look dangerous at all. This area is 1. 5 feettwo feet. They thought the heat would damage my suit. I was five or six above them wanting them fire it at one time. Watching them fire it at one time. Mike wallace that was ed white, one of the three astronauts who died aboard the apollo spacecraft on launchpad 34 early tonight at cape kennedy. The astronauts apparently died instantly. Space Officials Say that a gantry wrapped around the booster rockets, prevented the use of the apollos emergency escape system, which would have been this up here at the top. The rocket would have taken the spacecraft away from the rocket. It was the only way the astronauts could have escaped, two at to open the patches here and scramble out. That simply was impossible. Space Officials Say the three astronauts possibly had no knowledge that there was a serious problem. The spacecraft and rocket were not fueled. Explosive devices had been inactivated, and they could not have caused the disaster. The minor difficulties had cropped up during the countdown this afternoon with two systems, the Communication System and the Environmental Control systems. Investigators do not know where the fire stand from the two troublesome systems, the fire that engulfed the spacecraft and caused the death of the three astronauts. The man who was to command this doomed apollo flight was known as the hardluck astronaut because of what was, until tonight, the closest brush with death in americas Space Program. Gus grisham flew five years ago aboard a redstone rocket. You see him here going aboard. It seems all perfect until splashdown. Walter cronkite describes what happened. Walter cronkite the capsule began to sink. Hooked on butter was nearly dragged down as the capsule filled with seawater. Finally another helicopter plucked gus grissom from the water, soaking wet, unhurt, and very surprised. just laying there minding my own business then, pow, blue sky and water starting to come in. The top went off. The only moves i remember is that i tossed the helmet off and grabbing the entrance panel and pulling myself out. I dont even remember pulling that grabbing the instrument panel. Walter cronkite the latest news from nasa about the accident on pad 34 that caused the death of the three astronauts. The pads safety crew was up on the pad and up to the tower about 10 minutes15 minutes 10 to 15 minutes after the first indication of trouble this afternoon. The flash fire occurred at 6 31 standard time. The smoke at that point was so intense, the rescue crew, wearing masks, suffered smoke inhalation in spite of the masks. There were 27 men at the pad. Of the men suffered bad smoke 25 inhalation, but evidently they are all right. Two are still under observation. Three doctors arrived. As soon as conditions allowed, but by then it was too late to save the crew. For late information from washington, washington reaction to what happened at cape kennedy, we go now to our cbs news in washington and correspondence correspondents dave shoemaker and dan rather. Mike, for astronauts are in seclusion in a hotel room a few blocks away from where i am sitting. D,rdon cooper, dick goddar john glenn neil armstrong, and , jim level. Orton says they do not feel up to talking on television, but he did consent to a short interview from his room. Cooper and the others are shocked. Three of these men were our very closest friends. The astronauts of course are a closely knit group in a field is quite deeply. While the astronauts are upset, it would not be fair to say, that they are brokenhearted over this. That is not the right word asher, but as test pilots, astronauts, they were well aware of the dangers involved. They seemed most concerned with the finding out of what went wrong. As cooper said, we are extremely anxious. We want to find out what caused it. The astronauts have been going it, one over and over of the astronauts said, ever since they first received that phone call. Since then the phone in their room has been ringing constantly as information comes to them both from cape kennedy and the space center in houston. Gordon says they dont know enough to know what really happened. They do know it happened during that countdown, just a few seconds prior to the simulated liftoff. Cooper tended to doubt that it was in the Environmental Control system, although he said there had been trouble with it earlier in the apollo program. However, he seemed to feel that that had been lit. Licked. There has also been a history of electrical problems in the apollo spacecraft. I asked cooper if that had been cleared up, and he gave a rather short, bitter laugh before he said, well, we thought so. Cooper also admitted that it could be the electrical system, but he said that would be conjecture tonight. Cooper had visited the astronauts, gus grissom, white, just thee chafee other day down at cape kennedy. He said all of the asked about excited, they thought everything was under control. Finally, the last words that Gordon Cooper and the others said, we want to make it clear that we want to forge ahead. As for the Space Program they , said, we have to make sure that we do not stall it out just because of this. Also in town today were a number of important officials of the Space Program, and dan rather tracked down several of them. Dan rather thank you. The apollo dinner at the International Club here in washington was held shortly after the signing of the outer space treaty at the white house this afternoon. All of the top space officials were present this evening. Also were some Business People involved in a space project. You might say it really was a blueribbon group of space officials, business and industry people gathered at the International Club for what was to have been a rather gala occasion. Some congressmen and senators were present. Vice president humphrey was there when i arrived, about an hour after the tragic message came from cape kennedy. It was not clear whether he was whether Vice President humphrey had been at the apollo dinner before or whether he had come over after the word was received. The impression i gathered was the Vice President came to the dinner after receiving word of the accident at cape kennedy. President johnson telephoned the group at the apollo dinner and talked with mr. James webb, the director of nasa. The whole dinner was sealed off from reporters and people from the outside for the better part of an hour. People inside said there would be no statement made by james webb, no further statement from president johnson, no statement from Vice President humphrey. As he put it, we are all members members of the team. We want to find out exactly what happened. We want to make sure the American People have the correct facts and all of the facts. But we very simply have very few facts at the moment. Vice president humphrey, as he came out of the building was sad faced. He told me personally, i think president johnsons statement speaks for the entire country. As mike reported earlier, president johnsons official statement from the white house was, and i quote three valiant , young men have given their lives in national service. We mourn the great loss, and our hearts go out to the families. Vice president humphrey echoed those sentiments. As the apollo meeting broke up, everyone in the room seemed quite anxious to leave the room. Some of those there didnt seem quite to know how to act. A few simply shrugged their shoulders and said, what can . Say say. Others thought out reporters to say, one thing we want you to make clear is that no one in this program wants to give up. Werner von braun, one of the better known names in the american Space Program was , there. At first he would not say anything. He said, i am a member of the team and i cannot say anything. Were not supposed to say anything. But then finally he seemed he could not contain himself, and he started to talk to us. He would not give anything at the studio or anything approaching a full interview. He said one thing that sticks out in my mind, he said that all of the astronauts live on a first name basis with the death. These men know the risks. They thought the risks were worth taking. Now he also said that, and mike, i dont know of this has been covered earlier. This is a direct quote from werner von braun. All we know is there was a test going on at cape kennedy with three astronauts under pure oxygen conditions. And the men probably died from asphyxiation because, and this continues the direct quote from werner von braun, as the fire broke out, they cannot be evacuated in time. The oxygen burned up. This is dan rather with david shoemaker in washington, now back to mike wallace. Mike wallace according to the latest information from nasa at the manned Spacecraft Center in houston, the first apollo flight, which was scheduled for february 21, has now been postponed indefinitely. However, walter sharad, one of the original mercury astronauts, his command pilot on the backup crew including don isley and walter cunningham, both rookie is anauts, there spacecraft at north american aviation down at downey, california, which will take over the job for the damage of the apollo spacecraft. But that should take perhaps 1. 5 months of qualifying tests for that spacecraft and perhaps another 1. 5 months assimilated test at cape kennedy. So chances are it will be three months before apollo i gets off the ground again. That is speculation. John glenn, of course, is one of the bestknown names in the american Space Program, now out of it as a working astronaut some months ago. Astronaut john glenn was asked whether space is safe. John glenn quite the opposite. I think we all expect to lose a man sometime. We are working hard against it, of course. But in anything where you have equipment like this, new equipment like this, we are not just hiding our heads in the sand. We are well aware someone could be knocked off on some mission or other. But just as in aviation, we have all had friends killed in aviation. It doesnt mean aviation progress stops and we shouldnt fly anymore. This program is worth running. There will be times when people will probably get hurt. The program will go on. We are not going to stop our efforts. Meanwhile, we want to make it as safe as we can possibly make it. Mike wallace john glenn, flanked by the late gus grisham gus grissom and by geek of the deke slaton graham. Another veteran of the United States Space Program is Walter Cronkite who has just arrived here at the newsroom in new york. Walter, i am sure this hits you hard because these men were friends of yours. You knew gus from the beginning. Walter cronkite yes, indeed, mike. That is true. It has got to hit everybody hard, every american hard, no matter how well you knew these men personally or not. I noticed that through the evening, we referred to gus grissom as the hardluck guy because of what happened during that second suborbital mercury flight when his capsule went down. But you know gus said to me, he , took some umbrage at this being called the hardluck guy. No pilot, certainly no astronaut wants to have that appellation laid against his name. And he said to me once, he said, you know, i am not the hardluck guy, i am the good luck guy. I am the guy who came out of the capsule that sank in the ocean. This was his attitude towards the whole matter, i think. Of the Space Program. Mayuld like to comment if i , mike, without taking too much time on a couple of things that have been mentioned in the reports in the last five hours since we knew of the tragedy. The matter of an escape tower, from what i have heard, and i have been talking to the cape these last several minutes to my friends down there, from what i gather, this would have not helped a bit. If the there was no evidence it if the escape tower had been rigged, there was no evidence it was, probably was not. The escape tower works on pyrotechnics, on a blast of its own. Those rockets are not placed in there this early in the countdown, i do not believe. Im not sure about the saturn program, but i dont think so. Even if it had been, even if the gantry, the director had not been around the spacecraft to prevent it, apparently, according to all of the crews who have been up there and looked into the tragedy these , men could not have escaped anyway. Apparently they died absolutely instantly. Which points to this most frequently mentioned speculation of an oxygen fire. And we all can understand, i think, oxygen the danger of oxygen, even if we dont know how fast it works because few of us who have not had the experience of going to a hospital and seeing a friend under an oxygen tank with all of those red signs warning against smoking. It is a highly volatile thing, pure oxygen. And apparently from the early evidence from the capsule, it went, it went fast. These men were breathing pure oxygen. They in a sense were part of this immediate, momentary, by the second disaster. Millisecond disaster. And if there is anything that can be rationalized about their deaths, it undoubtedly was instantaneous. These were smart test pilots, their reaction time was amazingly fast. And they would have been on that horn, calling into the tower, even to report that the had known they were about to go. They would have reported what it was so the rest of the program would have known. Those were the kind of men they were. I think one thing that should be said, this is a time for great sadness, national sadness, and certainly the personal sadness of the people in the Space Program, but it is also a time for courage. If that sounds trite, i will change the words to guts. The thing the fellows said on the film that you showed earlier, the thing that everybody in the Space Program has been saying tonight and has been quoted, the way it had gone down, this is a test program. We knew it was a test program. These guys who went into the program knew it was a test program. A test program, with equipment of this nature as with airplanes or boats or submarines or anything you are operating in a hostile environment, which space is, and this was a hostile environment even if they were on the ground because of the pure oxygen and all of these things this program was bound to claim its victims. These fellows, everyone of them are test pilots. They have been in the air forces test stations, they have flown highly sophisticated aircraft, and they have seen a lot of their buddies go down. And i dont know. I couldnt begin to tell you, because i dont know the number of test pilots who have died in this country since the beginning of our Space Program. These are the first astronauts to die in an accident directly related to the Space Program. It should not be a cause for our turning back or having question any question of faltering in our progress forward towards the landing on the moon. We probably are going to be delayed. It may be possible to make up the time. It seems a little doubtful. We may be able to consolidate two flights, although they had we had already consolidated a couple in the apollo program. It means maybe a couple of , months delayed. It could push us from late 1968 to 1969. It might push us from 1969 to 1970. If Something Else happens. There is going to be a delay. Certainly it shouldnt in any way damage the national resolve to press on with the program for which these men gave their lives. Thank you. Up, wallace so to sum americas first three apollo astronauts were trapped and killed by a flash fire that swept their apollo spacecraft early tonight in a launchpad test at cape kennedy. Gus grissom, ed white, and rookie astronaut roger chaffee. Training for his first spaceflight. The flight scheduled for february 21, now postponed indefinitely. The three men aboard their spacecraft, 10 minutes from isolated it off, when a flash fire hit at 6 31 tonight eastern, standard time. They were in their space goats space suits, buttoned up in the spacecraft when the fire hit. There was a flash, and that was it, according to a nasa spokesperson watching the Television Screen in the block house a few hundred yards away from the launchpad. President johnson tonight mourned the death of the three astronauts. He said that they gave their lives in the nations service. This has been a special report from cbs news. Mike wallace at the cbs newsroom in new york. Announcer this has been the cbs news special report. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer 1 youre watching American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation like us , on facebook at cspan history. Announcer 2 Harvard University professor Jeremy Friedman talks about his book shadow cold world, war the sinosoviet cup titian for the third world