The Apollo 1 Disaster

I READ WITH MUCH INTEREST KELEY A. Giblin’s article “‘Fire in the Cockpit!’” in the Spring 1998 issue. Generally I believe it rather accurately reflects the consensus and posture at NASA as it has been distilled and is recorded in NASA files and publications. I have been trying for many years to get some modifying and corrective information incorporated into the record, but with only minor success so far.

First, the North American background: It built the P-51 Mustang, F-86 Sabrejet, B-25 bomber, and AT-6 trainer under war-condition pressure; the Mach 6 research plane; the X-15; second stage for Saturn V and engines for all stages—with excellent cost and quality discipline throughout. No well-organized company would permit alcohol influence on the factory floor, as was charged. This was either an emotional rumor or the misjudgment of some disciplinary action or occasional aberration that could occur anywhere. The experience level was lowered by the addition of many new employees for the space program, but the workers were basically inspired and highly motivated by the challenge and scope of the project.

Second, NASA’s extensive justification for the 16.7-psi oxygen inflation on the pad is strained, labored, and inaccurate. The procedure had one merit: It was quick and easy. In a published article on the Apollo-Soyuz mission, a prominent NASA engineer termed the oxygen inflation a “massive mistake.” I don’t know why a McDonnell test pilot was made unconscious by an oxygen deficiency, but the Apollo crew was getting straight oxygen in their suits through umbilical hoses, and it was absolutely unreal to take the chances NASA did with cabin oxygen inflation to prevent (essentially impossible) nitrogen leaks into the system. The point is that North American did not know about this inflation. There was no testing for flammability at such pressures, and of course fireproofing was hopeless in any event.

Harrison Storms and Scott Crossfield, his quality-control manager, argued for a two-gas (nitrogen and oxygen) system as is presently used in Mir and the space shuttle, but they were directed to use pure oxygen in space at 5 psi. Thereafter all materials were tested for flammability at that pressure of straight oxygen. What we did not know was that the cabin would be inflated to two pounds over atmospheric pressure, or 16.7 psi, on the pad, for which no fire tests had been made. This practice was shortly stopped and will never be tried again.

Giblin reports that 1,407 errors were found in a spacecraft, CSM 017, that had been through all functional tests and detailed inspection by company and NASA quality-control inspectors. Surely he must realize that this represented a major paradigm shift in ground rules and a different way of applying wiring standards and involved essentially every wire in the spacecraft.

Although Mercury and Gemini astronauts had reported floating particles, lost washers, nuts, or fragments in space, the Apollo craft had been carefully rotated and gently vibrated in all positions to try to eliminate such debris. Of course the possibility of a short circuit at a wire terminal by such a metallic fragment always existed, but circuits were protected by circuit breakers in most cases. The short circuit in Gemini 8 might have been caused by such a particle. To protect against this required a different approach in many cases, and after the fire the rule book was rewritten.

Tests showed that with ordinary air or even 40 percent nitrogen inflation, fire would not propagate with an incandescent nichrome wire strung across the cockpit, whereas with 100 percent oxygen at 16.7 psi, the fire could not be damped by any reasonable fire-quenching system.

Regarding the question of a short circuit as the immediate cause of the fire, one never showed up on the multiplex voltage record chart of all spacecraft circuits. However, I will not suggest that no short circuit occurred, and I am sure that with a reasonable cabin atmosphere the recovery from such an event would have involved the resetting of a circuit breaker or an automatic recovery with no damage. One successful Apollo launch encountered a lightning strike from a thundercloud, which must have been the equivalent of several short circuits and required the reprogramming of some computer sequences. The mission continued as planned. A short circuit is always possible and should never be a disaster!

Finally, a word about Harrison Storms. He is depicted as an arrogant hardware pusher who would admit no fault. His record and accomplishments tell quite a different story, and if he made the remark as quoted [“There’s not a goddamn thing wrong with those spacecraft!”], I am confident that the provocation was extreme and that he simply meant that the spacecraft was functionally operable and fireprooftested for the cabin inflation and environment it was designed for. He was made a scapegoat, and perhaps his sanguine attitude and one-liner answers to questions and problems contributed to that. In fact he was a deeply capable aeronautical engineer who contributed greatly to the North American aircraft line and very importantly to the X-15 aerospace plane. He always reached for performance and usually got it to everyone’s advantage. His greatest contribution to performance was to NASA itself in the form of the S-II Saturn stage, the only structural engineering element in the Apollo program cited for excellence in engineering by the National Academy of Engineering in its 25-year review.

All the above has been carefully researched and documented with NASA documents. I have sent scrupulously prepared packages to many who should be able to contribute to a true history of the Apollo program. My usual response is absolutely nothing or “that’s not my department” or something similar. It is difficult for anyone connected with space work to forget that nearly all funding for space, even support for the history itself, comes from congressional appropriations for NASA, which awards and administers the contracts. It is not hard to understand why the response to these facts and disclosures is simply silence. The record will not be changed.

In any event, this same company built the space shuttles and their main engines that have dominated manned space flight for a generation.

J. Leland Atwood
Vista, Calif.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer was president of North American Aviation from 1948 to 1960 and chief executive officer from 1960 to 1970.

Kelly A. Giblin replies: I believe my article clearly illustrates the culpability of NASA with regard to the fire, primarily its failure to heed several warnings about the dangers of using a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere in the cabin; its inadequate follow-up on the presence of combustibles; and the detrimental impact of its design-on-thefly process on quality control. Perhaps this does not offer the level of exoneration Mr. Atwood feels is due to North American, but I think my presentation was fair and unbiased. While the bar may have indeed been raised on the issue of quality after the fire, the problems found in the dissection of CSM 017 existed nonetheless.

Concerning Mr. Storms, I feel that neither he nor Joe Shea was simply a scapegoat for the fire. Both were likely seen by NASA as being too close to the situation to effect the change necessary to get the Apollo program back on track. The subsequent changes made by John Healey at North American certainly had a positive impact on operations there and were decisive in enabling the company to go on to produce CSM 101 with, as NASA reported, “fewer discrepancies than … any spacecraft previously delivered.”

THE TRAGIC FIRE DESCRIBED IN YOUR excellent article would not have happened if the quick-removal door that North American Aviation designed had not been removed at NASA’s insistence. I worked at North American Aviation at the time. Harrison Storms’s Apollo people worked to get NASA to approve the quick-release door, which was added to the program as one of the main changes after the fire. The full responsibility for the deaths of the three astronauts rests with NASA; no former aircraft-design firm would have ever designed a vehicle without a quick-release door.

Elliott R. Buxton
Huntington Beach, Calif.

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WACO HAD A DUMMY LINE IN THE 1890s. Three charter members were my kin. It went broke and lost all their investment. I still have a stock certificate.

Cavitt J. Caufield
McGregor, Tex.