Grissom, Chaffee, and White Remembered
More than half-a-century after a tragic launchpad fire claimed their lives, the crew-members of NASA’s Apollo 1 mission were honored with a monument at Arlington National Cemetery. Families of the three, deceased astronauts requested a Latin motto meaning A rough road leads to the stars be carved into the monument’s stone. On 27 January 1967–three weeks ahead of the mission’s scheduled launch date—astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee perished during a preflight simulation when an electrical fire broke-out in the pure oxygen environment of the Apollo1 command module.