[X] My Assistant

[dvandorn]

I've been re-reading my copy of Murray & Cox's excellent history of Apollo (entitled, simply enough, "Apollo, The Race to the Moon"), and I just finished the section about The Fire.

I'm a little curious -- we've discussed here, before, about how Jules Bergman felt it necessary to run the audio tape of the final transmissions from Apollo 1 as the crew struggled in vain to get the hatch open. But, as I read the piece again this time, another fragment of memory popped up that I'm pretty sure happened, but that I can hardly believe was allowed.

On level A-8 of the Pad 34 service tower, where the White Room enclosed the spacecraft, there were several TV cameras. One was in the White Room itself. While there was no camera inside the spacecraft, that camera in the White Room was pointed directly at the Apollo hatch, and there are a number of descriptions of the hatch window becoming very bright as the fire swept across the cabin, with some blurry indications of motion as Ed White tried to open it.

I don't really see how it's possible, but I have a very clear memory of seeing a videotape of that camera as the fire flared. I saw it back in 1967, within a week or two of the event. It wasn't until 1981 ior 1982 that Bergman ran the comm tape, but I know with great certainty that I saw the video of the hatch window.

However -- again, I don't understand how it's possible that such a tape could possibly have been available to the TV networks at the time. I don't even see that it's likely that all of the pad cameras were even attached to video recorders (especially since videotape was a relatively new technology in 1967, and you'd need a separate huge recording deck for each camera on the pad).

Does anyone else remember ever seeing these images? If so, can you remember when and where?

Thanks in advance, people...

-the other Doug

[dvandorn]

No, I'm not thinking of the Ron Howard film -- this was indeed the TV camera's view of the Apollo 1 hatch. I can definitely recall seeing it on a TV news show, in which the commentator pointed out that there was no TV camera inside the capsule, but that we could see a little of what was going on through the hatch window. He talked through the brightening of the window, and then the feed cut off before the capsule breached and fires and smoke inside the White Room itself obscured the view.

I also recall hearing the voice tape on ABC pre-launch coverage of the Shuttle, but my memory is that it was prior to a scrubbed launch attempt of either STS-2 or STS-3. I seem to recall this because I didn't have a VCR at the time of the STS-1 launch, but I did for STS-2 and subsequent launches. I had been taping the launch attempt, and therefore had the audio tape on the VCR tape -- and I made a point of *not* saving it. I recorded over it when the launch was actually performed. Like you, I found its unexpected appearance disturbing and unwelcome -- although, as a student of the history of the Apollo program, I was somehow satisfied that I had heard it once, and was able to determine for myself exactly what was said.

But that scream -- it was Chaffee's -- will stay with me in my nightmares for as long as I live. And for that, I don't have any good things to say about Jules Bergman. Ever.

-the other Doug