But in three years you are forgotten, he said. This is the families memorial, said Sonny Witt, the 45th Space Wing director of operations for Division 1 at Patrick Air Force Base, who helps provide the access. They kind of ignored the Apollo 1 fire for 50 years. "It caused a lot of folks to step back and pause and think about the nature of these flights. President Lyndon B. Johnson sat with the family in the front row as television cameras recorded the service. Revealed: Hidden heartache of astronaut wives who sought solace in Roger Chaffee was an earnest student who earned 10 merit badges in his first year as a Boy Scout, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout. You never went down, you fought all the way.. January 13, 2017, 4:09 pm, by We fixed them. daughter, and supported her application to Purdue University in Indiana; a This makes it highly likely that, had Roger Chaffee flown Apollo 1 on theplanned date, he would havenot only gained the record for the youngest U.S. spacefarer, but would have held onto it for at leasta half-century. We found the problems, said Bob Sieck, a former NASA launch director. After taking a long walk on the beaches of Lake Michigan that night, Chaffee returned the next morning and passed the vision test with flying colors, according to his NASA biography. Fifty years ago this week, America's exuberant chase to land a person on the moon was caught horribly off-guard when a launch pad fire killed three astronauts, including West Michigan native Lt. Roger B. Chaffee. But the flames aboard the space capsule cut his promising life short. Ed White III rode his bike home on that evening after playing football. The exam was repeated the next morning. I dont want any of this forgotten, Ms. Grissom said. NASA Group Three was unusual in that it comprised a mix of experimental test pilots, Air Force engineers, ex-military fliers in research roles, and, lastly, two operational naval aviators: Chaffee and Gene Cernan. Chaffee, along with astronauts Virgil Gus Grissom and Ed White II, died on Jan. 27, 1967, when a blaze erupted in their command module during preflight testing. martha horn chaffee canfieldclarence krusen laredo, texas obituary. Roger B. Chaffee (Roger Bruce Chaffee) was born on 15 February, 1935 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, is an Actor.