Ghosts of Arlington Podcast

Monday, August 29, 2022

Episode 57: The Apollo 1 Investigation (The Apollo Prgram, Part II)

I'm not sure how I missed this during my research, but earlier this year Arlington National Cemetery unveiled a new memorial to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire. It is not located in Section 24 near the USS Maine Monument with the other astronaut memorials. This one is in Section 3, near the headstones of the two Apollo 1 crewmembers interred at Arlington. It was unveiled on June 2, 2022.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom is interred at Arlington Naitonal Cemetery in Section 3, Grave 2503.

Navy Lieutnenat Commander Roger Bruce Chaffee is interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 3, Grave 2502

As per his wishes and the wishes of his family, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Edward Higgins White II is interred at the cemetery of his alma mater, the United States Military Academy at West Point, in Section 18, Row G, Grave 80. His father, himself a West Point alumnus, is also buried there.

Pad 34, where the fire took place, still stands as a memorial to the fallen crew of Apollo 1, as seen here during the 50th anniversary commemoration of the fire.

The memo that NASA official Jim Jones sent to President Lyndon B. Johnson just over an hour after the fire to inform him of the accident.

The letter LBJ sent to Roger Chaffee's parents after the accident. As a huge supporter of the space program, Johnson took the lose of the astronauts hard and wrote similar letters to the parents and wives of all three astronauts killed in the fire.

Sunday, August 21, 2022

Episode 56: The Tragedy of Apollo 1 (The Apollo Program 1)

55 years ago, last January, the crew of Apollo 1 (left to right Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee) strapped into their command module for what should have been a routine low-risk test. They never left the module, dying in a fire and that seems to have been as inevitable as it was unexpected. Many red flags before the tragedy were ignored which led to plenty of finger pointing after the fact. What should have been the triumphal first act for the program that was to take Americans to the moon, nearly killed the space race in the United States. But in the end, this wakeup call may have been what ultimately saved the Apollo Program and turned it into the success it was.

After the fire, which only lasted a few minutes, the interior of the Apollo 1 command module was unrecognizable, even to those who were most familiar with it.

The crew died of asphyxiation in less than a minute after their oxygen hoses were burned through and cut them off from their source of fresh air. The subsequent autopsies showed that the flight suits provided enough protection for the astronauts that their burn would have likely been survivable (and probably occurred post-mortem).

Everyone involved in the program knew there were a lot of issues with the spacecraft, though most either thought they would eventually be worked out (because everything in Project Mercury and Project Gemini had just kind of worked out in the end) or choose to ignore them. As a joke, the crew sent the above photo to Apollo spacecraft administration manager Joseph Shea - who had given the module a provisional passing grade but ordered a lot of flammable material removed from the cabin (it never was) - and inscribed it with the following: "It isn't that we don't trust you, Joe, but this time we've decided to go over your head."

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Episode 55: My First Arlington National Cemetery Funeral

Thanks to an open invitation from his family and that invitation's wider distribution by U.S. Army W.T.F! Moments, I was able to attend the funeral of Korean and Vietnam war veteran, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hill.

Over the course of two wars, LTC Hill acquired some serious chest candy, including Special Forces and Airborne qualifications, expert rifle and machine gunner, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Valor, two Legion of Merits, a Vietnam Service Medal with two Campaign Stars, a South Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, a Meritorious Service Medal, two Air Medals, four Army Commendation Medals, a Republic Korea War Service Medal, an Army of Occupation Medal with German Clasp and Japan Clasp, two Defense Service Medals, a Korean Service Medal with (I believe) seven Campaign Stars, a United Nations Korean Service Medal, a Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, a Department of the Army Distinguished Civilian Service Award, and a Department of the Army Civilian Service Commendation Medal. This shadow box also includes his 25^th Infantry Division combat patch, a World War II-era amphibious engineers seahorse patch that I can only assume he had a connection to (possibly in Korea) and the JFK Special Warfare Center Patch (under his Special Forces tab), an Army Staff badge, a World War I Iron Cross I can only assume is a memento from his service time in German (possibly belonging to his father-in-law), and the tassel from his Ph.D. in 1986.

LTC Hill later in life, still proudly carrying a 25th Infantry Division challenge coin in his wallet.

LTC Hill's casket with roses left by family and a military police badge left by an MP colonel.

Fort Myer Old Post Chapel.

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Episode 54: Project Gemini, Part VI

The more I think about taking a spacewalk, the more the idea appeals to me, but some that appeal likely stems from the fact that astronauts have space walking down to a science. I can't imagine the early spacewalks which everyone hoped would turn out okay without having worked out all the kinks. The Gemini 9A space walk was very touch and go and in the uncertainty mission commander Tom Stafford thought up a plan that would leave no man behind but would have resulted in both his and fellow astronaut Gene Cernan's deaths. Fortunately, they were able to avoid that scenario.

Despite the exertion of his spacewalk, Cernan was able to snape some photos, including this wide angle of Tom Stafford looking out the Gemini 9A porthole back at him.

And like all good Gemini missions, there were multiple things that went wrong this 9A - above is the "angry alligator" the described to mission control.

The Gemini 9A mission insignia is in the shape of a shield and shows the Gemini spacecraft docked to the Agena (which turned out to be wishful thinking [thanks angry alligator!]). It includes a spacewalking astronaut, with his tether forming the shape of the number 9. Although the Gemini 9 mission was changed to the newer docking craft when it became 9A, the patch was not changed.

The Gemini 10 insignia is simple in design but highly symbolic. The main feature is the large Roman number X with a Gemini and Agena orbiting around it. The two stars have a variety of meanings: the two rendezvous attempts, Castor and Pollux in the Gemini constellation, or the two crew members. This is one of the few patched without the crew's name. It is able to be displayed upside down but is correctly shown with the spacecraft to the right. It was designed by crew member John Young's then-wife Barbara.

Since Gemini XI astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon were both in the Navy, the patch was designed in the US Navy's colors of blue and gold. Stars are used to mark major milestone in the mission. The first orbit Agena rendezvous is marked by a small gold star just above the Earth, to the left. The Agena docking is marked by a large star on the left. The star at the top marks the record high apogee reached by Gemini 11 (note that the scale is greatly exaggerated. Their maximum altitude of 850 miles [1360 kilometers] is roughly the distance form St Louis to Cape Kennedy). Finally, the star on the right marks Gordon's spacewalk. The docking, record apogee, and spacewalk are also shown on the patch by the Agena, orbital apogee path, and spacewalking astronaut.

The insignia's orange and black color scheme are a link to the flight's original schedule near Halloween, before being pushed to mid-November. The Roman number XII is located at the 12 o'clock position with the Gemini spacecraft pointing to it. This represents the position of Gemini 12 as the last flight of Project Gemini. With the Apollo Program following this final Gemini flight, the ultimate objective - the moon - is symbolized by the crescent on the left.

Ranger 3 was the first of the Ranger lunar probes planned to photograph the lunar surface, close up, before crash landing to help determine if landing on the moon was possible. Rangers 3-6 all failed.

Lessons learned from the failured lead to an overhaul of the Ranger 7-9 design.

This is the first image returned from Ranger 7 in 1964. The large crater at the center is Alphonsus.

The final image from Ranger 7 was taken from an altitude of 1600 feet (about 490 meters), which revealed features as small as 15 inches (or 38 centimeters) across. The noise pattern on the right is the result of the spacecraft impacting the surface of the moon while transmitting the image.

On March 24, 1965, a nationwide TV audience watched live video from Ranger 9 as it purposefully crashed into the moon within the crater Alphonsus. Ranger's six cameras sent back more than 5800 video images during the last last 18 minutes of its 3-day journey, the last of the Ranger Project. The last few images show the lunar surface in detail from a few humdred meters above.

*UPDATE* This was an exciting time for NASA, but it was not without its risks. The first astronaut to be interred at Arlington didn't die in a launch accident or in space, rather, he was killed by a bird strike when a goose hit the jet he was piloting in foggy weather. In his final act, Air Force Captain Theodore Cordy "Ted" Freeman made sure he wouldn't crash into military housing which caused him to eject too late for his parachute to deploy. He never made it to space, but died a hero nonetheless.

Captain Freeman is interred in Section 4, Grave 3148

Sunday, July 24, 2022

Episode 53: Project Gemini, Part V

With the passage of time, the details fade, and it can be easy to think that the early days of the space race were routine and ordinary. The truth is, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts put thier lives on the line for every space flight - and some training sessions, too. The truth is, astronatus today do the same thing. Neil Armstrong and David Scott, both space rookies, flew the Gemini 8 misison and did something no one had successfully done before - they docked with another object orbiting Earth. 27 minutes later, they nearly died.

Elliot See and Charlie Bassett were tapped to fly Gemini 9, but a few weeks before Gemini 8 flew, they both died when poor visibility and pilot error caused their twin seat T-38 jet to crash on approach in St. Louis, Missiouri. There are a lot of quotes out there by astronatus who recognize the risks they take, while acknowledging that it is impossible to have progress without risk. Gus Grissom, the second American in space said, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not depay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." The prescience of that quote is unmistakable.

Both See and Bassett were laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. Bassett in Section 4, Grave 195 and See in Section 4 Grave 208.

The Gemini 8 insignia was co-designed by both Armstrong and Scott. The text at the bottom had the zodiacal symbol for Gemini (

) and the Roman numeral for the number eight. The two stars Castor and Pollux, from the constellation Gemini and also included and are refracting light through a prisim casting a rainbow which represents the whole spectrum of light, symbolic of the whole spectrum of the planned Gemini 8 mission before it was unexpectedly cut about 65 hours short.

Since 1959, NASA has inducted 23 classes of astronauts. Most classes since Group 8 (1978) have designed a group patch and I figured with all our talk of patches the last two espisodes, I should showcase those here