What state were the astronaut bodies from Apollo 1 in?
The bodies of the astronauts from the Apollo 1 mission, which tragically ended in a cabin fire during a pre-flight test, were returned to their families.
The accident occurred on January 27, 1967, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The three astronauts who lost their lives in the Apollo 1 accident were:
- Virgil “Gus” Grissom (Command Pilot)
- Edward H. White II (Senior Pilot)
- Roger B. Chaffee (Pilot)
After the accident, an investigation into the cause of the fire was conducted, and the bodies were returned to their families for private burials.
Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee were buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and Edward White was buried at West Point Cemetery in New York. The families had the choice of where to bury their loved ones, and they made those decisions independently.
What state were the astronaut bodies from Apollo 1 in?
Grissom had the worst burns, being close to the fire source, with severe 3rd degrees burns over 1/3 of his body. White had 3rd degree burns over 1/2 his body.
Chaffee had 3rd degree burns over 1/4 of his body. There are photos of their burned suits on the Internet.
The burns didn’t kill them; it was the toxic fumes that killed them when their suits and oxygen tubes failed. Some news reports initially said the bodies were just charred remains, but that was false.
When will autopsy photos of the Apollo 1 astronauts be released, and in what manner are those records classified?
There is nothing to release. Transcripts and audio are already available. For informative purposes, you can see what their suits looked like, as well as the capsule after the fire.
As stated in another answer, photos of human remains – if there were any images – wouldn’t be part of any release. To honor and respect the memories of those great men and their families.
Vast information about the incident, root cause, and later capsule redesign can be found on the web under Apollo 1 investigation and similar topics.
Here is a thorough review: https://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/appendices/AppendixD12-17.pdf
These guys were my childhood heroes. RIP.
[Edit: I chose to answer this question, which at first seemed a bit morbid, but ever since I was a kid, I wondered how an astronaut in full suit, who was prepared to go to space, could be burned and die.
Those space suits seemed unbeatable to me. So I did this research some 30 years later, once the Internet could assist. Sobering indeed, and done with utmost respect to all those involved.]
Did Apollo 1 astronauts suffer?
Yes, sadly, they did.
The capsule was filled with pure oxygen, and a spark in poorly insulated wiring set off a fire. To make matters worse, the door opened towards the inside.
Apart from the complicated procedure to open the door, the overpressure from the fire made it even more challenging to open the door.
Technically, the astronauts died from suffocation. But they were heavily burned as well. They were buried the following Saturday with full military honors.
After the accident, NASA made some changes. The wiring was stripped and completely redone on all vessels. The pure oxygen mix in the cabinet was changed for a different blend before launch, and the safety procedures were changed. The design of the door was revised.
Why were all the Apollo astronauts so old?
This question is full of so much wrongness.
1) 47 in 1969 is different from 60s today. Life expectancy changes don’t work that way.
2) 47 is young.
3) The question picked the oldest of the Apollo astronauts and treated it like the norm.
The twelve men who walked on the Moon ranged in age from 36 (Charlie Duke) to 47 (Alan Shepard). The average age was 40 years and three months.
Do these men look old to you?
Eight of the twelve are still alive, and the ones I’ve met are in fantastic shape.
Alan Shepard was the only astronaut from the original Mercury Seven that walked on the Moon. He had been an astronaut for almost 12 years when he finally stepped on the Moon.
The 12 men who walked on the Moon were carefully selected to be the best. Most of them were engineers and experienced professional test pilots.
Because of the timing, some had served in combat in either World War II or Korea. And then it takes years of training as an astronaut to be ready to fly.
It takes a long time to acquire the skills and experience needed to be selected as an astronaut. That has stayed the same, although the selection process was more rigorous in the 60s.
The average age of the eight new Astronaut Candidates that NASA just selected this year is 36. They will all be at least 40 by the time they fly.
Even Hollywood usually understands this – there’s a reason the new film Gravity stars George Clooney (52) and Sandra Bullock (49) as astronauts and not, say, Liam Hemsworth (23) and Jennifer Lawrence (23).
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What happened to the three astronauts of Apollo 8?
Frank Borman retired after Apollo 8. He became CEO of Eastern Airlines
Jim Lovell commanded Apollo 13 and retired after four space flights. He was on the board of several corporations.
Bill Anders retired from NASA. He became the first Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Ambassador to Norway. He then became Chairman of the Board of General Dynamics
Remarkably, all three remained married to their wives for over 60 years.
If the Apollo astronauts had gotten stuck on the Moon, would the bodies have been preserved?
If their suits are depressurized, the bodies should begin desiccating immediately. On the other hand, if they died from starvation or lack of oxygen in a pressurized condition, then their microbial friends in and on their bodies would immediately start the decay process.
If he got disconnected from the spaceship and was floating out in space, he should try to minimize his exercise until he was hopelessly stranded in space, at which time he should vent his space suit and RIP.
Why were the Apollo 1 astronauts not able to dock?
Apollo 1 was not able to dock because it never left the ground.
It suffered a capsule fire during a practice countdown (the rocket wasn’t even fuelled) on January 27, 1967.
The fire killed the crew of Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee.
You may be thinking of a different Apollo mission.
What were those packs the astronauts were carrying to their Apollo missions? Was their PLSS different?
If you mean the things they carried on their walk out to the bus that took them to the launch pad, those were temporary cooling systems for their space suits. The PLSS was different.
It weighed far more and was designed for use in the low gravity of the Moon. It held a cooling system, too, but a different one that depended on the vacuum of space to work. It also had oxygen and water supplies, radios, and batteries.
What were the conditions of the astronaut’s bodies after the Challenger Crew Compartment was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean?
The crew compartment fell about 2 minutes, 45 seconds, and was relatively intact until it hit the ocean. Some, if not all, of the astronauts, were alive and conscious following the explosion and were able to activate personal air supply packs.
When found, the astronauts’ bodies were badly damaged, not from the explosion but from the impact of the water; their bodies were not intact.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology staff identified the bodies but could not determine the cause of death for any of them.
See the “Cause and time of death” and “Recovery of debris and crew” sections from a Wikipedia article. You can check the footnotes to verify the statements and to obtain more detailed information.
Did everyone die in Apollo 1?
Yes, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee all died in the capsule fire. The mission was retrospectively renamed Apollo 1.
If the capsule had not been faulty and the Apollo program had proceeded as initially planned, Gus Grissom would have been the first man on the Moon.
Did they find the Columbia astronauts’ bodies?
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the shuttle disintegrated during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Tragically, all seven astronauts on board lost their lives. The search and recovery efforts were extensive, involving multiple agencies and organizations.
The debris from the shuttle was scattered across a wide area in East Texas and Western Louisiana. Recovery teams worked to collect the wreckage to investigate the cause of the disaster. The efforts included locating and retrieving the remains of the astronauts.
The remains of all seven Columbia astronauts were found and recovered during the search operations. The recovery process aimed to gather all available information to understand the accident’s circumstances and provide closure to the astronauts’ families.
The investigation into the Columbia disaster determined that a breach in the shuttle’s left wing, caused by a piece of foam insulation during launch, led to the tragedy during re-entry.
The findings from the investigation contributed to improvements in shuttle design and safety procedures for future space missions.
Did they find the Columbia astronauts’ bodies?
Well, not 100% of every astronaut.
You have to understand that the astronauts’ families need to be protected from too much detail given publicly.
With that in mind, body parts have been recovered. As horrible as it sounds, a 3-year-old boy in Texas found one of the astronauts’ legs.
That gives you an idea of how violent the break-up was. There are more details, but that should suffice.
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What happened to the Apollo 1 crew?
Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee perished in their Apollo command module during a ‘plugs out’ systems test of the spacecraft in 1967. This was a dress rehearsal for procedures as complete as possible, short of fuelling the rocket.
The capsule was filled with a 100% oxygen atmosphere at 16psi. (Higher than sea level atmospheric pressure). This environment was highly conducive to supporting any fire that started.
Although the exact cause of the blaze that took their lives was never precisely established, it was believed to have been initiated in a wiring bundle beneath Grissom’s couch.
The egress hatch design was overly complicated and designed to open inwards. This, combined with the increased pressure as the fire took hold, made escape impossible.
It was impossible to pull the hatch inwards against the atmospheric pressure. The three astronauts succumbed to asphyxiation within about 30 seconds.
Grissom and Chaffee were interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
White was interred at West Point Military Academy Cemetery.
Why would the Apollo capsule have seats if the astronauts had never sat there?
Only ask why once you know whether. The Apollo capsule didn’t have seats—it had couches.
During launch, the crew had to endure up to 4 Gs, and lying on their backs with their feet slightly elevated helped equalize the stresses on their bodies, keep blood flowing to their brains, and keep them strapped in front of their instruments—but that’s not why they had couches.
During descent, the G forces could be twice as strong had anything gone wrong, leaving them to perform a ballistic reentry as high as 12 Gs. And not just for a few seconds as when punching out of a fighter jet—but for several minutes.
Under those kinds of forces, lying supine was the only way to minimize the risk of spinal injury, cerebral hemorrhage, aortic tears, broken ribs, or worse.
Were the human body parts recovered in the Columbia space shuttle disaster?
I’m familiar with the CAIB report, although I have yet to read all of it. I have read the redacted crew survivability report NASA did in 2008 and “Comm Check: The last flight of the shuttle Columbia.”
The short answer: Yes, they found the bodies of the crew.
The long answer: The crew lost consciousness within 90 seconds of the shuttle losing control (L.O.C.). The shuttle pitched nose-up, rolling to the left, causing it to expose its entire underside to the wind at 15,000 mph (Mach 18).
The aerodynamic forces put on the shuttle, already weakened by the loss of the left-wing, ripped it apart.
(The same thing happened to Challenger. The aerodynamic forces created by the explosion of the tank and the two S.R.B.s applying thrust in three different directions caused the shuttle to be torn apart.)
The crew had no idea what was wrong or that the situation was unrecoverable and was likely still trying to troubleshoot the cause of the L.O.C. when Columbia went through a catastrophic event (C.E.) and broke up about sixty seconds after L.O.C.
At that point, 6 of the 7 had their helmets on, all had the visors up, and only 3 of the 7 had their gloves on and linked. (The pressure suit only works as such if the visor is down and the gloves are on and zipped at the wrists.)
Approximately thirty seconds after the C.E., the crew module (CM) separated from the forebody, causing rapid depressurization. The crew became unconscious within 10–15 seconds and were dead within a few minutes.
I’ll skip the details as I’ve posted them in another question, and that was enough for me. You can also read the Crew Survivability Report if you’re so inclined. (PDF warning).
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There is a good summary if you need to read the full report. (The report is 400 pages but easy to understand, even if you’re not an engineer.)
The CM breaking up at 15,000 mph, 200,000 feet in the air, does not do a fragile human body any favors.
They didn’t have time between the C.E. and the CM depressurization to configure their suits for pressure, but it wouldn’t have saved them anyway. Their bodies were torn apart by the extreme environment to which they were exposed.
So, yes, human remains were found, along with some of the equipment they had worn. The report mentions a heart, a ripped open chest, a femur, and various other things you’d instead not find alongside the road.
There was enough found to determine how they’d died and the types of events the bodies had been subjected to before/as the CM broke apart.
They may not all have been in that condition – the crew survivability report was redacted to keep private such details, which is just as it should be – but I assume so. I know that the crew’s remaining members had to be identified by D.N.A.
Is it true that NASA has a recording of the Challenger astronauts after the explosion screaming and praying while they fell to the sea?
Yes. The crew compartment was blown off the front of the shuttle and fell intact for 2.5 minutes before hitting the ocean. When it hit, it smashed open from the non-survivable impact. Nobody survived that impact.
Emergency oxygen supplies for three crew members were found to have been activated. One was not. The three other oxygen controls were never located, so we must determine whether they were started.
NASA has never released photos of the recovered cockpit or the remains that were in it. Only some of the remains recovered were in the cockpit, and no mention is made of any attempt to pass the last messages.
The doomed sailors on the Russian Kursk nuclear submarine lived 4–6 hours after the explosion that sank their boat. More than one note was later found in an immediate survivor’s pocket.
According to Snopes.com, this account by a Miami Herald reporter summarizes what’s publicly known. Remember that it took six weeks to find the wreckage of the cockpit, and it was breached and flooded with seawater when it hit the ocean.
This Snopes article addresses an alleged transcript from a suspected personal tape recorder carried by an astronaut. They don’t believe any such tape recorder existed and don’t believe the tape would have survived six weeks in salt water.
Are These the Final Words of the Challenger Crew?
“Such an environment breeds its rumors, and Miami Herald reporter Dennis E. Powell wrote that the crew was likely all alive and conscious until the shuttle’s crew compartment plunged into the Atlantic Ocean:
When the shuttle broke apart, the crew compartment did not lose pressure, at least not at once. There was an uncomfortable jolt — “A pretty good kick in the pants,” one investigator describes it — but it was not so severe as to cause injury.
This probably accounted for the “uh oh,” the last word heard on the flight deck tape recorder that would be recovered from the ocean floor two months later.
As they were feeling the jolt, the four astronauts on the flight deck saw a bright flash and a cloud of steam. The lights went out. The intercom went dead. After a few breaths, the seven astronauts stopped getting oxygen into their helmets.
Someone, apparently astronaut Ronald McNair, leaned forward and turned on the personal emergency air pack of shuttle pilot Michael Smith. Commander Francis Scobee’s PEAP was in a difficult place to reach. It was not activated.
Even so, if the crew compartment did not rapidly lose air pressure, Scobee would only have had to lift his mask to be able to breathe. Two other PEAPs were turned on. The three others were never found.
Though the shuttle had broken to pieces, the crew compartment was intact. The investigators said it stabilized in a nose-down attitude within 10 to 20 seconds.
Even if the compartment was gradually losing pressure, those on the flight deck would undoubtedly have remained conscious long enough to catch a glimpse of the green-brown Atlantic rushing toward them.
If it lost its pressurization very slowly or remained intact until it hit the water, they were conscious and aware down.
No clear evidence was ever found that the crew cabin was depressurized. Undoubtedly, no sudden, catastrophic loss of air would have knocked the astronauts out within seconds.
Such an event would have caused the mid-deck floor to buckle upward; that didn’t happen.”
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Were the remains of the Space Shuttle Challenger crew recovered?
Yes, some remains of all the Challenger crew were located and recovered in March 1986. but not one of the corpses was intact.
Navy divers from the U.S.S. Preserver located the wreckage of the crew compartment of Challenger on the ocean bed at a depth of 87 feet of water, 17 miles northeast of the Kennedy Space Centre, and they further confirmed that it contained “remains of the astronauts.”
The families of the seven crew members were notified of the discovery. In deference to the families, NASA released no details until the recovery was completed and the remains identified.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Deborah Burnette said that neither the crew compartment nor the bodies were intact. “We’re talking debris, and not a crew compartment, and we’re talking remains, not bodies,”
Climatic conditions and strong waves meant it took twelve weeks to recover. Lt. Cmdr. Deborah A. Burnette, the spokesman for the salvage effort, said the recovery operation, which began the day the shuttle exploded, was the largest single salvage exercise in the history of the United States Navy.
Pathologists from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology were flown to Patrick Air Force Base near the cape, where they assisted in identifying the remains.
It was on 20th April 1986 that NASA confirmed the retrieval of the remains of the crew had been completed.
Conclusion
The bodies of the three astronauts from the Apollo 1 mission were in a state of mortuary preservation after their tragic deaths during a pre-launch test on January 27, 1967.
The astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died as a result of a fire that broke out in the cockpit of their spacecraft during a countdown rehearsal test.
The bodies of the astronauts were recovered and transported to a mortuary for preservation until their families could make arrangements for their funeral services. The exact state of the bodies after the fire would have likely depended on the extent of their injuries and the conditions of the fire.