Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom (1926-1967)

[Orionid]

Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom (03.04.1926-27.01.1967)

Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom został 16. (3) człowiekiem w kosmosie.

Został wyselekcjonowany w ramach NASA grupa 1 (02.04.1959)
09.04.1959 NASA ogłosiła oficjalnie skład grupy.

11.1945 po odejściu z wojska przez pewien czas pracował w Zakładach Karoserii Stolarskiej, produkujących autobusy szkolne.

10.1956-05.1957 szkolił się w Szkole Pilotów Doświadczalnych Sił Powietrznych w Edwards AFB w Kalifornii.
Następnie służył jako pilot testowy w Flight Test Center w Wright-Patterson AFB w stanie Ohio.
Brał udział w testach samolotów T-33, F-86, F-94, F-100, F-102 i F-104.

Został drugim Amerykaninem, który przekroczył linię Kármána, pilotując w locie suborbitalnym statek kosmiczny Mercury -Redstone-4.
Została wówczas osiągnięta wysokość 190,3 km, a pokonana odległośc wyniosła 485,8 km.
Kapsuła powrotna „Liberty Bell 7” tuż po wodowaniu doznała nieoczekiwanego odstrzelenia włazu i zaczęła się szybko napełniać wodą.
Grissom niezwłocznie opuścił kapsułę, lecz woda zaczęła wypełniać także jego skafander.

Życie astronauty zostało uratowane w wyniku akcji ekipy ratunkowej.
Kapsuła okazała się za ciężka do podjęcia przez helikopter (nastąpiło zerwanie z uwięzi) i zatonęła.

04.04.1999 zlokalizowano położenie kabiny „Liberty Bell 7” (ok. 150 km na północ od bahamskiej wyspy Wielkie Abaco), a 20.07.1999 została wydobyta na powierzchnię z głębokości ok. 4,6 km.

W wyniku zdiagnozowanej u Sheparda choroby, astronauta został 13.04.1963 wyznaczony na dowódcę pierwszej misji w programie Gemini: Gemini III.

Grissom nadał kapsule Gemini 3 imię „Molly Brown”, co było nawiązaniem do jego poprzedniej misji
(Molly Brown była pasażerką „Titanica”, która ratując wielu pasażerów uzyskała przydomek „Niezatapialna”).
Spotkało się to z niechętną reakcją kierownictwa NASA i od tej misji aż do lotu Apollo 9 zakazano nadawania nazw pojazdom załogowym.
Wyprawa miała za zadanie przetestowanie możliwości wykonywania manewrów dokowania na orbicie okołoziemskiej oraz umożliwić astronautom realizację EVA.
23.03.1965 został 5. Amerykaninem na orbicie, oraz pierwszym człowiekiem, który odbył drugi lot na pokładzie statku kosmicznego.

Można jeszcze dodać, że był pierwszym astronautą (jeszcze jako nielot) po wyborze, który obchodził urodziny.

27.01.1967 podpułkownik Sił Powietrznych Virgil Ivan 'Gus' Grissom zmarł w wieku 40. lat z powodu poparzeń doznanych w pożarze, który wybuchł podczas szkolenia w kabinie Apollo 1 (SA-204) na wyrzutni LC-34 na przylądku Canaveral.

Grissom miał dużą szansę znaleźć się w składzie załogi, która jako pierwsza miała wylądować na Księżycu..

https://www.nasa.gov/former-astronaut-virgil-i-grissom/

http://www.spacefacts.de/bios/astronauts/english/grissom_virgil.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/g/grissom.html
https://www.worldspaceflight.com/bios/g/grissom-v.php

https://mek.kosmo.cz/bio/usa/00016.htm
https://www.kozmo-data.sk/kozmonauti/grissom-ivan-virgil.html 23.4.1926
https://www.astronaut.ru/crossroad/016.htm
https://www.april12.eu/usaastron/grissom3ru.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Grissom
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_Grissom

A 1 https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=32.msg128087#msg128087
KHW https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=800.msg183067#msg183067

https://www.nasa.gov/history/40thmerc7/grissom.htm
https://www.nmspacemuseum.org/inductee/virgil-i-grissom/

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/sinking-liberty-bell-7-gus-grissoms-near-fatal-mission

Gus Grissom taught NASA a hard lesson: “You can hurt yourself in the ocean”
ERIC BERGER - 7/17/2021, 4:25 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/with-every-splashdown-nasa-embraces-the-legacy-of-gus-grissom/

https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/3-april-1926/
https://www.filmweb.pl/person/Gus+Grissom-508637
https://www.grissom.afrc.af.mil/News/Article/2279658/60-years-ago-lt-col-virgil-grissom-makes-history/

https://news.va.gov/98792/veteranoftheday-air-force-veteran-virgil-grissom/

https://www.thoughtco.com/gus-grissom-biography-4120716

Blask historii: Virgil Grissom – trzeci człowiek w kosmosie
Posted on 20 maja 2002  by Michał Moroz
https://astronet.pl/loty-kosmiczne/n2036/

Gus Grissom – „Podbój kosmosu wart jest narażania życia”
Posted on3 kwietnia 2017  by Anna Wizerkaniuk 
https://astronet.pl/autorskie/gus-grissom-podboj-kosmosu-wart-jest-narazania-zycia/

https://twitter.com/ron_eisele/status/1775240128627142914

3 April 1926. Birth of Virgil Ivan Grissom, known as Gus Grissom, one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and United States Air Force pilot. The second American to fly in space and the first NASA astronaut to fly in space twice.

https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1775523653779587118

"There is a clarity, a brilliance to space that simply doesn't exist on Earth." —Gus Grissom
Gus Grissom was born #OTD in 1926. An accomplished pilot, he was chosen as one of NASA's first 7 astronauts, and became the 2nd American to fly to space in 1961. https://go.nasa.gov/49ouORL

https://twitter.com/ArmstrongSpace/status/1775560721457094715

APRIL 3: #OnThisDay in 1926, Virgil “Gus” Grissom was born in Mitchell, Indiana.
Let us remember his pioneering spirit for exploration. His courage and dedication to space continues to inspire generations!

On this day in 1926, Gus Grissom was born. One of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Grissom was the second American in space and the first NASA astronaut to fly in space twice.

https://x.com/airandspace/status/1775542781240283308

[Orionid]

Betty Grissom, Who Sued in Astronaut Husband’s Death, Dies at 91
By Katharine Q. Seelye Oct. 11, 2018


The astronaut Virgil Grissom was reunited with his wife, Betty, and their sons, Scott (left) and Mark, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after his three-orbit flight in 1965. He was killed in a launchpad fire less than two years later.Credit...Associated Press

Betty Grissom, the widow of the astronaut Virgil Grissom, whose death in a launchpad fire in 1967 led her to sue a NASA contractor, died on Saturday at her home in Houston. She was 91.

Her son Mark confirmed the death. He said neighbors had noticed that Ms. Grissom had picked up her morning newspaper but not her afternoon mail and went to check on her. She had died while sorting the laundry, he said, and the cause of death was not known.

Virgil Grissom, known as Gus, one of the seven original Mercury astronauts immortalized by Tom Wolfe in his book “The Right Stuff,” was the second American in space, after Alan Shepard. He was also the command pilot of Apollo 1, which was intended to test the Apollo capsule for flights to the moon.

But during a routine test at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an electrical fire swept through the command module, killing all three astronauts aboard — Mr. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee.

It was the first fatal accident in the history of the United States space program. Mr. Grissom was 40.

Multiple investigations followed. While they never pinpointed the source of the fire, they concluded that several design flaws, including a pure oxygen atmosphere inside the cabin, had exacerbated it. In addition, the hatch door was difficult to open, preventing the crew from escaping.

NASA subsequently undertook major modifications in design, materials and procedures, including making nonflammable spacesuits. Combustible materials in the cabin were replaced with self-extinguishing versions.



Mr. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee posed for a photograph at Launch Complex 34 at Cape Kennedy, 10 days before they were killed there when the space module they were in caught fire.Credit...NASA
Nearly four years after the fire, Mr. Grissom’s widow, who was raising two sons on her own, filed a multimillion-dollar wrongful death suit against the Apollo program’s primary contractor, North American Rockwell. (The government itself cannot be sued.)

The statute of limitations for wrongful death for survivors was two years and had expired, said Ronald D. Krist, the Houston lawyer who represented Ms. Grissom. But the general negligence statute was four years and had not expired, allowing her to sue for Mr. Grissom’s pain and suffering. She settled for $350,000, or about $2.2 million in today’s dollars.

Her action brought Ms. Grissom considerable grief, with strangers accusing her of being unpatriotic and the close-knit space community shunning her.

The experience embittered the family, said Mark Grissom, who was 13 when his father died.

“We got the dark side of NASA,” he said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “People who were my friends were no longer my friends. A lot of people turned their back on us, and Mom got a lot of hate mail. They were like, ‘How dare you sue NASA?’ We were no longer part of the NASA family.”

Mr. Krist said that NASA had forwarded her a note from one critic who said that Ms. Grissom should not be filing a suit because her husband had assumed a certain amount of risk by being an astronaut.

But Mr. Krist, a product-liability lawyer, said the astronauts had a right to expect that their capsule would be properly designed and that all prudent precautions would be taken to protect them. “The capsule was anything but fireproof,” he said.

In any case, Mr. Krist said, the suit made it easier for the families of the other two astronauts who were killed to receive compensation without having to go to court.

“Despite the criticism, she never flinched,” Mr. Krist said of Ms. Grissom. “She never regretted the lawsuit and never hesitated in her commitment to see it through.”

Betty Lavonne Moore was born on Aug. 8, 1927, in Mitchell, Ind., to Claude and Pauline (Sutherlin) Moore. Her father worked at a cement plant. She grew up in Mitchell and met Mr. Grissom in high school. They soon married, and she got a job as a late-night telephone operator for Indiana Bell while he studied mechanical engineering at Purdue University on the G.I. Bill.


Ms. Grissom spoke with friends and guests at a memorial event at Cape Canaveral on Jan. 27, 2017, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo disaster.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

In addition to her son Mark, Ms. Grissom is survived by another son, Scott; two grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Her sister, Mary Lou Fosbrink, is deceased.

In the 1983 movie adaptation of “The Right Stuff,” Ms. Grissom was portrayed by Veronica Cartwright and Mr. Grissom by Fred Ward.

When she received news of her husband’s death in 1967, Ms. Grissom was at a friend’s house for their weekly poker game. She said at the time that she had “already died 100,000 deaths” being married to an astronaut.

An early scare came in July 1961 after Mr. Grissom, as the second American in space, had successfully completed a 15-minute suborbital flight under the Mercury program. He nearly drowned when his capsule landed in the Atlantic Ocean and sank after the hatch blew off prematurely.

On Jan. 27, 2017, on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo disaster, Ms. Grissom and her family attended a small memorial ceremony at Cape Canaveral on Launch Complex 34, the now-crumbling concrete site where her husband’s capsule had been engulfed in flames.

The site was decorated with three red, white and blue floral wreaths provided by the Grissom family to honor all three men who had perished. She and her family had come annually on the anniversary of the fire, but she said she sensed that this would be her last time.

In contrast to the way she had been shunned in earlier days, Ms. Grissom was the center of attention, according to an account in The New York Times.

She told an interviewer that her husband’s sacrifice had helped pave the way for future missions in which other astronauts made it to the moon.

Still, she said, “I’m pretty sure he got to the moon before they did.”

“Of course he didn’t make it,” she added, “but in spirit I think he was already there.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/11/obituaries/betty-grissom-dead.html

https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1641810081833517057
https://twitter.com/spacemen1969/status/1774926487247876276

In just three more days, the four astronauts that will fly to the Moon on #Artemis II will be revealed!
64 years ago on April 1, 1959, the first @NASA_Astronauts, the Mercury 7, were chosen (announced on April 9). Of them, Al Shepard went on to crew a mission to the Moon!

Astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom and the Liberty Bell 7

NASA History Office @NASAhistory 4:00 PM · Jul 21, 2025
After splashdown, the hatch door blew prematurely, causing the spacecraft to fill with water and sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Grissom's suit also filled with water, and he came close to joining his spacecraft. https://go.nasa.gov/4eNQQBU

https://twitter.com/NASAhistory/status/1947295513037897756

[Orionid]

3 avril 1926
Gus Grissom (1926-1967) aurait eu 99 ans aujourd'hui.
Ma biographie :
https://aviation1-spacemen1969.blogspot.com/2018/03/virgil-i-gus-grissom-1926-1967-usa.html

https://x.com/spacemen1969/status/1907554384273354927

Dla przypomnienia dlaczego zatonęła Liberty Bell 7.

New Evidence Shows That Gus Grissom Did Not Accidentally Sink His Own Spacecraft 60 Years Ago
Tony Reichhardt July 21, 2021

Careful analysis of the recovery film showed it was static electricity that doomed the Liberty Bell 7.

Now Leopold and Andy Saunders, a space photo expert and author of Apollo Remastered, think they’ve solved the mystery of what really happened to Liberty Bell 7 that day. An electrical discharge during the recovery operation—not a panicky or clumsy astronaut—caused the hatch to blow. (...)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/new-evidence-shows-gus-grissom-did-not-accidentally-sink-his-own-spacecraft-sixty-years-ago-180978240/
https://www.c-span.org/clip/reel-america/user-clip-gus-grissom-on-his-rescue-after-landing-in-the-ocean/5010851

[mss]

Cady Coleman @Astro_Cady
41 min
🚀🪂#OTD 7/21/1961: Gus Grissom launched into history as the second American in space aboard Liberty Bell 7. Enduring peak 11.2 Gs during re-entry on his 15-minute suborbital flight, the real challenge unfolded after splashdown! https://nasa.gov/missions/apollo/apollo-1/detailed-biographies-of-the-apollo-1-crew/
 
@NASA #space #Mercury

https://twitter.com/Astro_Cady/status/1947267061060718853