Notable U.S. Human Exploration Space Disasters – Apollo 1
•In the hasty pace to put a Man on the moon before the Russians, NASA was making too many shortcuts and throwing relative caution to the wind. •At 6:30pm on Jan 27, 1967 a fire broke out in the capsule and asphyxiated all 3 crew members during a launch rehearsal while still on the pad. •A later investigation determined that a 100% oxygen cabin environment, mixed with faulty wiring and a cabin full of flammable material was at fault.
•To the left is a picture of the Apollo 1 disaster aftermath.
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http://www.historycentral.com/sixty/space/apollo1.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/A1prayer.jpg
•Below is a parody picture of the 3 lost crew members praying, expressing their concerns about their spacecraft's safety to NASA Management in August, 1966.
Gene Kranz’s speech given to flight control 3 days after the Apollo 1 fire.

“From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: Tough  and Competent. Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities... Competent  means we will never take anything for granted... Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write Tough and Competent on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room, these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control.”


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Fixes:
1,407 wiring problems were corrected.
Flammable materials in the cabin were replaced with self-extinguishing versions.
Plumbing and wiring were covered with protective insulation
The cabin atmosphere at launch was changed to 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen at sea-level pressure
Hatch was also re-designed to open outward rather than inward. During a fire, an inward opening hatch wont work with combustion gases rising pressure. Why its harder to open a soda can/bottle when its been shaken vigorously.

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Gus Grissom – Interview Dec 1966. Asked if he though space travel was to risky for humans.
“No, you sort of have to put that out of your mind. There's always a possibility that you can have a catastrophic failure, of course. This can happen on any flight. It can happen on the last one as well as the first one. You just plan as best you can to take care of all these eventualities, and you get a well-trained crew, and you go fly.“