Who was Gus Grissom?
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Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (1926 - 1967) was an American astronaut who flew during the Mercury and Gemini programs and would have been the commander of the first manned Apollo mission. During his eight years with NASA, he became the third person in history to fly in space and the first person to fly in space twice.
Sky Pilot
Grissom was born in Mitchell, Indiana on April 3, 1926 and, in his own words, "not much of a whizz in school." a His childhood home, now named the Gus Grissom Boyhood Home, can be visited. In August 1944, one year before the end of World War II, he enlisted as an aviation cadet in the US Army Air Forces and was assigned to Boca Raton Army Airfield in south Florida the following January. He was discharged from the military in November 1945 following the end of the war because he was dissatisfied with sitting at a desk completing paperwork rather than flying. Grissom then enrolled at Purdue University in Indiana and graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering— the first of 27 astronauts to graduate from the school.
Still dissatisfied working as a civilian, he re-enlisted in the newly established US Air Force and in March 1951, commissioned as a second lieutenant and received his pilot wings. In February 1952, he deployed to Korea and served as an F-86 Sabre pilot in the Korean War, promoting to first lieutenant in only one year. Grissom returned to the US after flying his quota of 100 missions overseas and served as a flight instructor at Bryan Air Force Base in Texas. He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in aeromechanics in 1956 from the US Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio and spent time at the US Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He returned to Wright-Pat as a captain and test flew new jet fighters.
1959 was a turning point in Grissom's life and the lives of six other men. Early in the year, he received top secret orders to report to Washington, D.C. in civilian clothes. He was one of 110 military test pilots invited to participate in screenings for Project Mercury, the US's first manned space program, and one of only 39 candidates who underwent extensive physical and psychological testing at the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico [1]. On April 1, Grissom was selected as one of the nation's first seven astronauts.
The Only Capsule with a Crack
In January 1961, Grissom was selected as backup to Alan Shepard's Mercury-Redstone 3 flight tentatively scheduled for March. However, due to the unsatisfactory performance of the Redstone booster during Mercury-Redstone 2, the first manned American spaceflight was delayed. Mercury-Redstone BD (for Booster Development) launched on March 24, 1961 in place of Shepard's Mercury-Redstone 3 and unfortunately for Shepard and the US, the first human being in space would be Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on April 12.
On May 5, Alan Shepard's launch day, Grissom was replaced by John Glenn so he could prepare for Mercury-Redstone 4 scheduled for the summer. Paying homage to the Mercury Seven astronauts and to the United States, Grissom named his spacecraft Liberty Bell 7, because in his words, his capsule was "shaped like a bell." [2] Chrysler Aerospace artist Cece Bibby even painted a crack on its exterior. There were two key differences between Grissom's and Shepard's spacecraft— Grissom's had a large window for Earth observation and an explosively operated side hatch. Mercury-Redstone 4 launched from Launch Complex 5 on Cape Canaveral on July 21, 1961 on a 15-minute suborbital flight and Grissom became the second American in space.
After splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, the explosive hatch blew prematurely, causing water to flood into the capsule. Grissom exited the spacecraft and treaded water while a helicopter attempted to recover the spacecraft, but the water inside made it too heavy to hoist. It was abandoned and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Grissom was transported to the USS Randolph, an Essex-class aircraft carrier. There was speculation Grissom panicked and blew the hatch, but subsequent investigation of the incident and fellow astronaut Wally Schirra vindicated him [3]. Liberty Bell 7 was recovered in 1999 and is now on display at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. Grissom's Mercury spacesuit is on display at Heroes & Legends at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.
The Gusmobile
After Alan Shepard was grounded upon being diagnosed with Ménière's disease, an inner ear disorder, in April 1964, Grissom was named command pilot of Gemini 3, the first manned flight of Project Gemini [4]. Gemini's purpose was to prepare astronauts for future flights to the moon and tested activities such as rendezvous and docking, long-duration spaceflight, and extra-vehicular activities. Grissom was paired with rookie astronaut John Young, who made his first of six spaceflights on Gemini 3.
According to Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom by George Leopold, Grissom considered naming his spacecraft Wapasha after several Mdewakanton Dakota chiefs who lived in Minnesota during the 18th and 19th centuries. Grissom and Young decided on the name Molly Brown after the popular broadway show The Unsinkable Molly Brown as a nod to Gus's sunken Liberty Bell 7 capsule [5]. NASA did not find it amusing and made the crew choose another name. Grissom suggested Titanic. NASA was even less amused by that one, so they reluctantly allowed Molly Brown [6]. Grissom also worked closely with the McDonnell Aircraft engineers and technicians who built the Gemini spacecraft, earning it the nickname "the Gusmobile".
Gemini 3 launched from Launch Complex-19 on March 23, 1965 onboard the first manned Gemini-Titan Launch Vehicle. Grissom became the first person to fly in space twice. During their three orbits of the Earth, Grissom performed an experiment of fertilizing sea urchin eggs to observe the effects of microgravity on living cells. A significant objective of Gemini 3 was testing special dehydrated food for multi-day missions. Young and backup command pilot Wally Schirra were aware of Grissom's dislike of the food, so once settled in orbit, Young pulled out a corned beef sandwich from a local deli he stowed in his pocket. When Grissom took a bite, tiny bits of rye bread broke off and floated around the cabin for the remainder of the mission. NASA was not happy whatsoever, but the pair of astronauts got off scot-free thanks to the rest of the mission being hugely successful. At the end of its first orbit, Gemini 3 performed the first orbital maneuver by a manned spacecraft. Molly Brown is now on display at the Virgil I. Grissom Museum in Mitchell, Indiana.
"The Conquest of Space is Worth the Risk of Life"
After serving as backup command pilot for Gemini 6A, Grissom was transferred the the Apollo program and assigned as commander of the first manned mission, AS-204, in late 1965. The mission's senior pilot was Ed White, veteran of Gemini 4 and the first American to perform an EVA, with rookie Roger Chaffee as its pilot. AS-204, posthumously designated Apollo 1, was planned to launch on February 21, 1967. The crew, especially commander Grissom, was frustrated with the Apollo spacecraft simulator and the Block I Apollo command module and concerned with the amount of flammable material in the cabin.
On Friday, January 27, 1967, the crew and launch control at Launch Complex-34 performed a "plugs-out" test to determine if the spacecraft could operate nominally on internal power. At 1831 (6:31 pm) local time, the unthinkable happened. Frayed wires near the astronauts' feet sparked and ignited the pressurized 100% oxygen cabin. The cockpit caught fire instantaneously and the crew died from asphyxiation in seconds [7]. Technicians in the white room, the room that connects the launch gantry with the capsule, could not open the hatch to rescue the astronauts since the hatch opened inward and could not be opened with the cabin at full internal pressure.
On January 31, Lieutenant Colonel Grissom was interred next to crew mate Roger Chaffee at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Five of the six remaining Mercury Seven astronauts and former crew mate John Young served as pallbearers (Schirra stayed with Grissom's widow Betty, who he had been with since high school, and their two sons). According to Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton's autobiography, Grissom was his first choice to be the first man on the moon, a choice seconded by director of the Manned Spacecraft Center Bob Gilruth and director of Flight Operations Chris Kraft. The Apollo 1 astronauts were posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with the crew of Apollo 11 in 1969.
"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 delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." - Gus Grissom
Grissom was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1981, the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1987, and the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990 with the other Mercury astronauts. In the 1970s, following the launch of Apollo 7 in October 1968, Launch Complex-34 was abandoned in place and now has two plaques dedicated to Apollo 1's sacrifice and three benches engraved with the last names of the three crew members [8]. The Apollo/Saturn V Center at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has an Apollo 1 exhibit with personal mementos from the crew. The names of the crew are on plaques left on the lunar surface by Apollo 11 and Apollo 15 and on the Space Mirror Wall at KSC.
Grissom has numerous dedications in his home state of Indiana, in the military, in schools, and in astronomy. Grissom crater on the far side of the moon was used and unofficially named by the crew of Apollo 8 and was officially named by the International Astronomical Union in 1970. Main belt asteroid 2161 Grissom is named after his July 21, 1961 Mercury-Redstone 4 launch date. On January 27, 2004, NASA named Grissom Hill as one of Mars' Apollo 1 Hills photographed by the Spirit rover.
Grissom has been represented in the media quite a bit. He was actually an extra in the 1951 film Air Cadet and can be seen early on in the movie. He was depicted in the movie The Right Stuff (though not very accurately), the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, the TV series The Astronaut Wives Club, the movies Hidden Figures and First Man, and the National Geographic miniseries The Right Stuff.
Author's note: Individual posts about MR-4, Gemini 3, and Apollo 1 are scheduled to commemorate their anniversaries over the next few years. As always, thanks for reading and be sure to like and share!
[1] The First Lady Astronaut Trainees were also put through physiological tests at the Lovelace Clinic in 1960.
[2] For my non-American readers, the Liberty Bell is a symbol of American independence famous for its distinctive large crack and located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
[3] Once on the deck of USS Kearsarge after the conclusion of Mercury-Atlas 8, Schirra blew the explosive hatch, bruising his hand. Had Grissom blown the hatch himself, he would have had a large bruise on his hand as well, which he did not.
[4] Shepard was the mission's original command pilot with Tom Stafford serving as its pilot. Grissom would've commanded a later mission with Frank Borman as pilot, but despite what the two had in common, their personalities didn't mesh.
[5] The Unsinkable Molly Brown is about the real-life Margaret Brown, a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic who helped with the ship's evacuation. She also worked with the Red Cross in France during and after World War I.
[6] After Gemini 3, NASA did not allow its astronauts to name their spacecraft until Apollo 9 in 1969, the first time two manned spacecraft were part of the same mission. Gemini 4 would have been named American Eagle.
[7] The crew of Apollo 1 were not the first space travelers to be killed in this way. In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut trainee Valentin Bondarenko was participating in an endurance experiment in a low-pressure altitude chamber when a cotton ball ignited in the oxygen-rich atmosphere. He suffered third-degree burns over most of his body and died 16 hours later of shock. The Soviet Union covered-up his membership in the cosmonaut corps and his death until the 1980s.
[8] One of these plaques (not the one pictured) was featured in the 1998 movie Armageddon, and there is a rumor that it was mounted to the leg of the launch pedestal by the film's crew without NASA's or the Air Force's permission. No one is sure when the plaque first appeared nor who put it there.
Bibliography
Evans, Ben. "From 'Greasy Grissom' to 'Gruff Gus': The Story of America's Second Man in Space." AmericaSpace, 2013. https://www.americaspace.com/2013/07/20/from-greasy-grissom-to-gruff-gus-the-story-of-americas-second-man-in-space-part-1/
Leopold, George. Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom. Purdue University Press, 2016.
Slayton, Donald K. and Cassutt, Michael. Deke! Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 1994.
Zorino, Mary C. "Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom." NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/history/40thmerc7/grissom.htm a
This post was written entirely without the use of AI (sorry HAL)
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