Apollo One 39 years later....

Launch Pad 34-A
HT Space.com

I remeber that Janurary day when my Mom told me about the Apollo One fire. I thought we would never get off the ground and land on the Moon. I was devistated at nine years old (same age as my KK)!

Astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee died during a blaze inside their Apollo capsule while conducting a countdown test on January 27, 1967 – three weeks before their scheduled liftoff from Kennedy Space Center.

A cumbersome hatch prevented technicians from rescuing the astronauts as the fire raged inside the Apollo 1 command module’s pure oxygen environment. Investigators later determined an electrical short was the fire's most likely cause. An extensive redesign of the Apollo spacecraft, with an emphasis on fireproof materials, was conducted in the wake of the tragedy. The first piloted Apollo mission, Apollo 7, took place in October 1968.