This is part 2 of the documentary series "Washington Goes To The Moon." It is called "Trials and Fire" and it looks at the fire on board Apollo 1 that killed three astronauts and nearly derailed the space program.
Today we understand better than ever that the exploration of space is a risky business. The explosions of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003 made that clear. But in 1967, most Americans saw space as nothing more than a big adventure. The danger seem beyond imagining.
In this program we go back to the disaster that almost derailed the Apollo Program and America’s drive to put a man on the moon; the tragedy of Apollo One. We look at how the fire revealed deep flaws in a NASA management structure that businesses and governments around the world viewed with envy and how NASA's attempts to cover-over those flaws fed into Congressional distrust that almost crushed the Space Program.
Minnesota's US Senator Walter Mondale played a key role in questioning if there was a NASA coverup of an investigative report on the Apollo One tragedy.
Documentary produced, written and narrated in 2006 by Richard Paul of WAMU, with funding from the National Science Foundation.
Fifty years after the Saturn V rocket carried the astronauts to the moon, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is honoring the historic mission with a giant holograph.
The reason some passengers weep uncontrollably or order strange beverages in the sky might be related to high levels of noise and low air pressure in the cabin.
Astronaut Walter Schirra's decision to bring a Swedish-made Hasselblad on his Mercury spaceflight set the course for NASA's choice of the camera for the Apollo lunar program.
He was the personal doctor of both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and the surgeon behind America's first botanical garden, which he planted for medicinal purposes. But most people have never heard of David Hosack.
Landing a man on the moon captures the public's imagination. But in the decades after the Apollo program, robots have also generated public excitement about space exploration.
The move is possible as a result of Digital Rights Management, an approach that allows companies to prevent piracy. Every purchased book will disappear this month.
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