Truth Sieve

January 27, 1967 was the date of the fateful training “accident” involving the crew of Apollo 1.  It was to be the first manned mission of the Apollo program, the effort by the United States of America to fulfill President John F. Kennedy’s vision of Americans being the first to walk on the Moon.  The incident analysis performed by NASA “showed” that a small electrical fault in the construction of the command module led to a fire that quickly consumed the oxygen in the capsule and killed astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee.

The reality is a bit more complex than that.  The command module was secretly prepared by operatives within NASA (or the contractor; the evidence is not clear which organization) to have wiring fault that would lead to a small fire that would then cause the test to fail.  The intent was to cause a setback in the program with the hope of delaying it by a year or more.  The crew death’s was not intended.  The architect’s of the “accident” were unaware that speed with which the fire would burn inside the capsule in the pure oxygen environment would be such that the command module hatch could not be opened in time by the crew to escape.

The investigation of the “accident” determined that production and maintenance records associated with the command module were so poor that it could not be reliably determined exactly what equipment went into the spacecraft.

The “accident” provided enough cover to delay the quest for the Moon so that changes could be made in alien visit patterns with the goal of avoiding wider revelation to the public during what would surely become the most intensely covered media event in the new medium of television.