Additional Cosponsors Sought For Apollo 1 Arlington Memorial Legislation
Dear Colleague Letter: Cosponsor the Bipartisan Apollo 1 Memorial Act
“Although all three astronauts were posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, it is surprising that we do not have a memorial at Arlington Cemetery to honor the lives of the crew of Apollo 1 as was done for the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews. H.R. 6147 , The Apollo I Memorial Act, would redress that unfortunate omission. As Arlington National Cemetery is where we recognize heroes who have passed in the service of the Nation, it is fitting on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo I accident that we acknowledge these astronauts by building a memorial in their honor. This bill would direct the Secretary of the Army, in consultation with the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to construct at an appropriate place in Arlington National Cemetery, a memorial marker honoring these American heroes.”
Honoring the Apollo 1 astronauts is a great idea! I hope more members of Congress join Representative Johnson and the co-sponsors to help move this bill forward.
I admit surprise, that there’s no such memorial located there for these three fallen stars. (BTW, there is a memorial of sorts, at the Cape, in the form of a couple of plaques on the abandoned LC-34 pad.)
Look harder. There is a large monument to dead astronauts. It’s tucked away behind the visitor center/museum complex.
The Astronaut Memorial is quite large and in front of the entire visitor complex. You can’t miss it. There is another memorial that is small and tucked away (near the Apollo-Soyuz display in the history of spaceflight exibit). In the center is a bronze eagle, with an astronaut’s helmet at one side and a construction worker’s hardhat on the other. It honors the KSC personnel who died during the construction of the Vehicle Assembly Building, which was an amazing feat in itself. They also accepted the risk, and sacrificed their lives, to help us reach the Moon.
I guess my pedestrian biases were showing. From the road, driving to (or past) the visitor complex, the memorial is very visible. If memory serves, it’s a bit too far from the road to see well (but that’s probably a matter of opinion.) But if you want to walk up to it and read the names, I think “tucked away” is a fair description. It’s on the far side from the parking lot and main entrance. For a tourist going through, it’s off the beaten track. I guess that’s what I was trying to say.
I knew what you meant, and agree that it is a bit off the beaten path and doesn’t get the same amount of foot traffic as the other areas of the visitor center. But that’s okay because it’s in a nice setting and worth seeking out.
Twenty-four people are listed on the Space Mirror Memorial, which commemorates not only astronauts but also the non-astronaut civilians who were killed during U.S. spaceflights, along with the NASA astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 spacecraft, and NASA and USAF astronauts killed in aircraft accidents.
SPACECRAFT IN-FLIGHT ACCIDENTS
NASA Space Shuttle Challenger
5 NASA astronauts (Scobee, Smith, Onizuka, Resnik, McNair)
2 Non-astronaut civilians (Jarvis, McAuliffe)
NASA Space Shuttle Columbia
6 NASA astronauts (Husband, McCool, Brown, Chawla, Anderson, Clark)
1 Non-astronaut civilian (Ramon)
SPACECRAFT GROUND ACCIDENT
NASA Apollo 1
3 NASA astronauts (Grissom, White, Chaffee)
AIRCRAFT ACCIDENTS
NASA T-38
1 NASA astronaut (Freeman)
2 NASA astronauts (See, Bassett)
1 NASA astronaut (Williams)
USAF F-104
1 USAF MOL astronaut (Lawrence)
NASA/USAF X-15
1 USAF MOL astronaut (Adams)
ASA Airlines Embraer 120RT
1 NASA astronaut (Carter)
MOL astronaut Lawrence was killed while training another pilot on steep landing approaches in the F-104B. Lawrence himself had made many such approaches during studies that eventually provided data for the Space Shuttle.
MOL astronaut Adams presumably also qualifies because his fatal X-15 flight attained 50.2 miles altitude, exceeding the Air Force boundary for spaceflight, earning him posthumous USAF astronaut wings.
The T-38 accidents were related to travel, Freeman was returning to Houston from training in St. Louis, See and Bassett were arriving in St. Louis for training. Williams was flying to Mobile, Alabama to visit his terminally ill father.
Carter was a passenger on a commercial aircraft while travelling on NASA business.
That is a point; the listing on the Astronaut memorial includes non-astronauts. However I again feel that we should honor all those who died in the course of America’s program of space exploration, just as we have the Tomb of the Unknowns to honor all those who died defending America in war. To say that White, Grissom and Chafee were soldiers of the Cold War, while it contains an element of truth, belies the overt statement left by the astronauts of Apollo 11 on the Moon, which is also true:
“We came in peace for all mankind.”
I’m not sure that in retrospective the general public thinks of Apollo 1 so much in terms of the Cold War. Although the Moon landing obviously had its genesis in the Cold War, it really seemed to take on a life of its own, and by 1969 there was such awe and excitement about the Moon landing in the public’s mind that I think very few people were thinking about the Soviets by that point. That is my recollection, which seems to be confirmed by news accounts of the period, both print and television coverage of the Moon landing in the days before and after scarcely mention the space race. I know that behind the scenes there was concern about the Soviets possibly pulling something off like an orbital mission, but I think the public by that time was just excited that we were going to the Moon.
It was a worldwide, shared moment. I can remember people in other countries saying “We did it” and headlines around the world read “Humans on the Moon” not “Americans on the Moon”. Obviously people in the U.S. also felt some pride about it, but again I remember it as mainly just pure excitement, and you hear that in other people’s recollections also. I think the first part of the inscription on the plaque, read out loud by Neil Armstrong to a listening world summed up the feeling of the moment:
“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon”
The Apollo 1 astronauts are also memorialized on the Moon, on a plaque containing a list of fourteen U.S. and Soviet astronauts, which was left on the surface during Apollo 15.
In some ways though it’s Arlington or the Mall in the US and everything else is second class.
That’s even more expensive to visit than KSC.
Will all the other astronauts who perished ‘on the ground’ (not during spaceflight) be similarly honored? I wonder if this had something to do with the Apollo 1 crew not being honored previously.
All the US astronauts killed in training or spaceflight are honored on the Astronaut Memorial. There are quite a few. But to get Robert Henry Lawrence, who was actually the first US astronaut to die in training for spaceflight, listed on the memorial, required years of pressure and finally action from Congress. Why?https://en.wikipedia.org/wi….
The Apollo One crew are honored, and I do not think it’s appropriate to have another memorial that honors some of the astronauts who made the supreme sacrifice, but not others.
The Astronaut Memorial is in Florida – not in our nation’s capital; as casualties of our nation’s Cold War race to the moon, these astronauts certainly deserve as much recognition in our national cemetery as the crews of Challenger and Columbia – the only other crews lost during a mission (or in this case, a mission rehearsal).
From what I recall from a visit a few years back, this site also has enough empty space around it for future space crew losses and it could also accommodate a memorial to those lost on training missions. But for now, with the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 1 accident approaching in January and the surviving family members getting old, this bill makes a lot of sense and these Members of Congress should be praised for their effort.
Of course all of the lives are equally valuable, however the Apollo 1 fire was a very high profile tragedy, comparable in public perception at the time to the later Space Shuttle accidents. Also Grissom and White were quite well known due to their previous space accomplishments. So while maybe not completely fair to honor them at Arlington and not the lesser known astronauts who were killed in aircraft accidents, I tend to doubt that had anything to do with it taking so long.
A better explanation I think is that Arlington really increased in public attention after Jackie Kennedy decided to have President Kennedy buried there in November 1963. The Apollo 1 fire was just over three years later, and although Grissom and Chaffee were buried there, it was probably too soon for anyone to think about creating a memorial. Only after later memorials were erected, most notably of course the Challenger and Columbia memorials, it seemed appropriate to also create one for what is still regarded as one of the nations three major spaceflight tragedies.
Call me a curmudgeon (wow I got to work that word into a comment!) but these people have been honored many times in many places. If people wanted to contribute money that would be fine but Grissom, White, and Chaffee might wish the money to be spent on putting a plaque on the next Lunar lander.
The Astronaut Memorial in Florida requires a hefty admission fee to visit, and the pad 34 memorial plaques are not accessible to the public.A small memorial next to the Challenger and Columbia memorials at Arlington, easily accessible to the public, would not be inappropriate.
Grissom and Chaffee are buried at Arlington but their actual grave sites are a long hike off the usual tourist path. (Ed White is buried at West Point, NY). Dick Scobee is buried right next to the Challenger memorial but visitors are always impressed when I point that out to them, it is not obvious.
I am planning to make that hike up to Grissom and Chaffee’s grave site on the 27th of January if anyone would like to join me.
I’ll be there on the 22nd – after the Women’s March. Thanks for pointing it out.