What Happened to The 3 Astronauts Who Died in Space?

 

[Applause]  captain i want to congratulate you i've  been reading your  flight on tv here and i'm delighted that  you uh got through that  i thought  good luck  veteran space pilots virgil grissom  edward white    and roger chaffee died in flames while  lying on their backs in their moonship  in a routine ground test for their  february 21st orbital flight  they were believed to have died  instantly in the fire which blazed up  without warning in pure oxygen in their  sealed cabin  27 launch pad workers were felt by smoke  in a desperate attempt to rescue the  astronauts  grissom was the second man into space  and rescue teams found their charred  bodies  white was the nation's first spacewalker  the astronauts were strapped in the  couch-like seats of the blackened apollo  cabin perched 218  feet atop a two-stage saturn rocket  the bodies of the astronauts remained in  the spacecraft for more than  seven hours while technicians tried to  find out all they could about the  reasons for the tragedy  they finally were removed at 1 55 a.m  eastern standard time  and taken to a dispensary at the base  an electrical spark which ignited the  pure oxygen of the pressurized cabin was  the apparent cause of the fiery  explosion aboard apollo 1.  their deaths were the first to be  recorded in man's attempt to conquer  space  the wives of the dead astronauts were  informed of the tragedy one hour and 15  minutes after it happened  and went into immediate seclusion with  their children each of the astronauts  had two children  the astronauts were the nation's first  three-man space crew in the apollo  program  designed to put men on the moon in 1969  you