Michael Potts's Blog: Bits and Pieces: Book Reviews and Articles on Writing, Horror Fiction, and Some Philosophy - Posts Tagged "apollo-1"

Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us on the Moon by Ryan S. Walters

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ryan Walters has written an informative and interesting book on one of the great tragedies of the drive toward landing a man on the moon--the Apollo 1 disaster. Three astronauts, in a flight simulation on the ground, were killed when a flash fire dashed through the Command Module. The astronauts could not get out quickly because of the old-fashioned hatch that took minutes to unlock. No one person was at fault, but a series of well-meaning people cut corners to save money; bureaucratic maneuvering also prevented the company with the highest rating from getting the contract to built the spaceship.

Walters details the space program from its beginnings, through Projects Mercury and Gemini, and finally into Project Apollo. He makes a strong case that without the disaster, the United States would not have had a ship safe enough to get astronauts to the moon before 1070. NASA's response then was not the same as NASA's response to more recent disasters (and this is my point, not Walters') due to Americans' growing fear of risk. The three astronauts who died wanted NASA to succeed, and the 1969 landing of Apollo 11, as Walters notes, is a fitting tribute to their sacrifice. Would that the changes could have occurred another way.



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