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2006-02-18 - 9:42 a.m. A rough road … if you didn’t place the last entry’s quote in history, it was the last thing said before the Fire. On January 27, 1967 – four and a half years before I was born – Apollo-204 burned up on the launch pad during a plugs out test, claiming the lives of Grissom, White and Chaffee. The test was going poorly because the comm.-link was so bad. In exasperation, they made the offhand comment How are we going to get to the moon if we can’t talk between three buildings? The next thing that came over the line to mission control was … fire in the cockpit… It’s been a hellacious two weeks at work greatly exacerbated by miscommunication; let me just leave it at that. The entire time those words have been echoing in my head as a poignant counterpoint. There was talking of renumbering the Apollo missions, calling 204 only by its internal designation and saving the callsign Apollo 1. But, at the widows’ request, the name Apollo 1 remained. Today, the burned out hull of Launch Complex 34 stands but with the addition of two plaques that say, in part: Ad Astra Per Aspera A rough road leads to the stars. I should put that up on my office door.     Scribble to Theo previous - next