Apollo 4

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Term Paper Title	Apollo 4
# of Words	1094
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.38

Apollo 4

Apollo 4

Introduction

     This paper is going to compare the Apollo 1 and the Challenger disasters.
Both space programs were unfortunate disasters, caused by a series of oversights
and misjudgments. How did this lost of life occur in such a high tech
environment? Apollo 4
     On January 27, 1967, the three astronauts of the Apollo 4, were doing a
test countdown on the launch pad.  Gus Grissom was in charge.  His crew were
Edward H. White, the first American to walk in space, and Roger B. Chaffee, a
naval officer going up for the first time.  182 feet below, R.C.A technician
Gary Propst was seated in front of a bank of television monitors, listening to
the crew radio channel and watching various televisions for important activity.
     Inside the Apollo 4 there was a metal door with a sharp edge.  Each time
the door was open and shut, it scraped against an environmental control unit
wire.  The repeated abrasion had exposed two tiny sections of wire.  A spark
alone would not cause a fire, but just below the cuts in the cable was a length
of aluminum tubing, which took a ninety-degree turn.  There were hundreds of
these turns in the whole capsule. The aluminum tubing carried a glycol cooling
fluid, which is not flammable, but when exposed to air it turns to flammable
fumes.  The capsule was filled with pure oxygen in an effort to allow the
astronauts to work more efficiently.  It also turns normally not so flammable
items to highly flammable items.  Raschel netting that was highly flammable in
the pure oxygen environment was near the exposed section of the wires.
     At 6:31:04 p.m. the Raschel netting burst into an open flame.  A second
after the netting burst into flames, the first message came over the crew's
radio channel: "Fire," Grissom said.  Two Seconds later, Chaffee said clearly,
"We've got a fire in the cockpit." His tone was businesslike (Murray 191).
     There was no camera in the cabin, but a remote control camera, if zoomed
in on the porthole could provide a partial, shadowy view of the interior of the
space craft. There was a lot of motion, Propst explained, as White seemed to
fumble with something and then quickly pull his arms back, then reach out again.
  Another pair of arms came into view from the left, Grissom's, as the flames
spread from the far left-hand corner of the spacecraft toward the porthole
(Murray 192).  The crew struggled for about 30 seconds after their suits failed,
and then died of asphyxiation, not the heat.  To get out ...

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