Apollo 1 In the weeks leading up to any manned space flight both the crew and the spacecraft they will be travelling in are put through a series of tests each more rigorous than the last to prepare both for the actual flight. The “Plugs-out” test is one such occurrence when the spacecraft is disconnected from all its umbilical plugs to ensure that it can function on its own internal power. Even on the first Apollo flight the plugs-out test was considered to be routine and not hazardous at all and it was intended that this would be just another long day which the crew would spend on their backs to ensure that both they, and their vehicle, would one day be ready for a voyage which could take them from the Earth to the Moon. On the afternoon of the 27th of January 1967 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were conducting a plugs-out test of the Apollo 1 space capsule as it sat on Pad 34 at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida atop its Saturn 1B launch vehicle. The test was being monitored at the Pad 34 Block House at Kennedy and at Mission Control in Houston. The test was not going well. Communications problems were plaguing the test and at one point Deke Slaton, Head of Astronaut Training suggested sending out for two soup cans and a very long ball of string to fix the problem. At just after 6.31 pm one communication did manage to travel from the Apollo 1 capsule to the monitoring personnel – “FIRE, WE HAVE A FIRE IN THE SPACECRAFT”. 15 seconds later the hull of the Apollo 1 capsule ruptured and the crew were dead. This picture commemorates the sacrifice made by those three brave men in the cause of furthering Humankind’s knowledge of space on this the anniversary of their deaths so long ago. It commemorates the crew of Apollo 1 – the flight that never flew. I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Ranman38 for creating the Saturn 1B for me – I could not have created this tribute picture without it.