Your Web News in One Place

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

Sign up for GreenGeeks web hosting
January 25, 2013 10:31 pm GMT

The Soviet Fire That Might Have Saved Apollo 1


On Jan. 27, 1967, the crew of Apollo 1 was killed when a fire broke out in their pure oxygen-soaked capsule during a routine pre-launch test. The dangers of an oxygen fire should have been obvious to NASA. It was obvious to the Apollo spacecrafts builder, North American Aviation, who recommended the space agency not run tests with a highly pressurized spacecraft.

It was also a danger the Soviet space agency knew well. In the early days of training, cosmonaut hopeful Valentin Bondarenko was killed in an eerily similar accident to the Apollo 1 crew.

Cosmonaut training in the 1960s wasnt all that different from the astronauts training at NASA. Neither nations space program was…
Continue reading...

More About: Apollo, history, NASA, russia, space


Original Link: http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/fA4FunHrOsE/

Share this article:    Share on Facebook
View Full Article

Mashable

Mashable is the top source for news in social and digital media, technology and web culture.

More About this Source Visit Mashable