Gus Grissom

• 1. A Boy From Mitchell

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  Virgil Ivan Grissom was born in the small town of Mitchell, Indiana, on the 3rd of April 1926. His father worked as a signalman for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad while his mother stayed home to manage their household. He grew up with three younger siblings after losing an older sister just before he arrived. The boy who would become one of America's first astronauts spent his childhood building model airplanes and attending the local Church of Christ. He joined the Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Star Scout. A friend once read his name upside down on a scorecard and misread "Griss" as "Gus." That nickname stuck for the rest of his life.

  His early years included delivering newspapers for The Indianapolis Star in the morning and the Bedford Times in the evening. During summer months, he picked fruit in area orchards or worked at a dry-goods store. He also held jobs at a meat market, a service station, and a clothing store in Mitchell. Grissom attended Riley grade school and later started high school there in 1940. Although he excelled at mathematics, he remained an average student in other subjects. He graduated from high school in 1944.

  Occasionally, he spent time at a local airport in Bedford, Indiana, where he first became interested in aviation. A local attorney owned a small plane and took him on flights to teach him the basics of flying. This early exposure to flight set the stage for his future career. His father encouraged him to find sports he was more suited for after realizing he was too short to play varsity basketball. He joined the swimming team instead.

• 2. The Mercury Seven Selection

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  In 1959, Grissom received an official teletype message instructing him to report to an address in Washington, D.C., wearing civilian clothes. The message was classified "Top Secret" and ordered him not to discuss its contents with anyone. Of the 508 military candidates considered, he was one of 110 test pilots whose credentials earned them an invitation to learn about Project Mercury. He passed initial screening in Washington and moved to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, along with others sent to undergo extensive physical and psychological testing.

  Doctors nearly disqualified him when they discovered he suffered from hay fever. He argued that his allergies would not be a problem due to the absence of ragweed pollen in space. They permitted him to continue despite the medical concern. On the 13th of April 1959, Grissom received official notification that he had been selected as one of the seven Project Mercury astronauts. He and six other men took leave from their respective branches of military service to begin astronaut training at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia on the 27th of April 1959.

  Grissom's selection marked a turning point for the young engineer who had enlisted in the Army Air Forces during World War II. His background included flying combat missions in Korea where he broke up air raids from North Korean MiGs. He flew one hundred combat missions over approximately six months before returning to the United States. The rigorous testing process filtered out many qualified pilots but left Grissom among the original seven chosen to represent America in space.

• 3. The Sinking Liberty Bell

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  On the 21st of July 1961, Grissom piloted the second Project Mercury flight named Mercury-Redstone 4. He called his spacecraft Liberty Bell 7 after the famous bell and drew a crack on it as a nod to its history. The sub-orbital flight lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds before splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. After landing, the emergency explosive bolts unexpectedly fired, blowing off the hatch and causing water to flood into the spacecraft.

  Grissom quickly exited through the open hatch and entered the ocean while waiting for recovery helicopters. His spacesuit began losing buoyancy due to an open air inlet, making him struggle to stay afloat until pulled by a helicopter. Another recovery helicopter tried to lift the flooding spacecraft but found it too heavy. They cut it loose, and it ultimately sank beneath the waves.

  At a news conference, reporters asked how he felt about the incident. Grissom replied, "Well, I was scared a good portion of the time; I guess that's a pretty good indication." He stated he had done nothing to cause the hatch to blow, yet no definitive explanation emerged. Robert F. Thompson, director of Mercury operations, spoke with Grissom upon his arrival on the aircraft carrier. NASA officials concluded Grissom had not necessarily initiated the firing since pressing the plunger required five pounds of force. No hand bruising appeared on Grissom to suggest he had triggered the mechanism.

• 4. Engineering The Gusmobile

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  In early 1964, Alan Shepard became grounded after being diagnosed with Ménière's disease. Grissom then received designation as command pilot for Gemini 3, the first crewed Project Gemini flight which flew on the 23rd of March 1965. This mission made Grissom the first human to fly into space twice. Joseph A. Walker held the record for reaching space twice through X-15 flights in 1963 before Grissom achieved this milestone.

  The two-man flight on Gemini 3 with Grissom and John W. Young made three revolutions of Earth lasting 4 hours, 52 minutes and 31 seconds. Grissom worked closely with engineers from McDonnell Aircraft who built the spacecraft. Because of his involvement in designing the first three spacecraft, fellow astronauts humorously referred to it as "the Gusmobile." By July 1963, NASA discovered 14 out of 16 astronauts could not fit themselves into the cabin. Cockpits were modified during this period.

  Grissom invented the multi-axis translation thruster controller used to push Gemini and Apollo spacecraft in linear directions for rendezvous and docking. He named the first Gemini spacecraft Molly Brown after a popular Broadway show about The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Some NASA publicity officials disliked the name but eventually allowed them to use it unofficially. Ground controllers continued calling it Molly Brown throughout its flight despite agency objections.

• 5. Fire On Launch Pad Thirty-Four

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  Before Apollo 1's planned launch on the 21st of February 1967, the Command Module interior caught fire and burned on the 27th of January 1967. This occurred during a pre-launch test on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy. Astronauts Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee worked inside the closed Command Module when they became asphyxiated and died.

  During the test, Grissom said, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings," then shouted: "fire!" The fire's ignition source was damaged wiring. The pilots' deaths resulted from lethal hazards in early CSM design including a pressurized 100 percent oxygen prelaunch atmosphere. Wiring and plumbing flaws combined with flammable materials used in the cockpit and flight suits created deadly conditions.

  An inward-opening hatch could not be opened quickly in an emergency and not at all with full internal pressure. Grissom had earned the nickname "Gruff Gus" by being outspoken about technical deficiencies of the spacecraft. He told reporters that problems with Apollo 1 came "in bushelfuls." Backup astronaut Walter Cunningham noted that while they felt capable of flying it, the spacecraft simply wasn't good enough for the job of flying the first crewed Apollo mission.

• 6. Honors And Memorials

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  Grissom's funeral services and burial at Arlington National Cemetery were held on the 31st of January 1967. Dignitaries included President Lyndon B. Johnson, members of Congress, and fellow NASA astronauts. He was interred beside Roger Chaffee while White's remains rest at West Point. At the time of his death, Grissom attained the rank of lieutenant colonel and logged 4,600 hours flying time including 3,500 hours in jet airplanes.

  To celebrate his spaceflight in 1961, he became honorary Mayor of Newport News, Virginia. A new library was dubbed the Virgil I. Grissom Library in Denbigh section of Newport News. The airport in Bedford, Indiana where Grissom flew as a teenager received his name in 1965. A three-ton piece of limestone inscribed with his name stood unveiled there. His fellow astronauts ribbed him about naming airports after dead aviators since this one honored a living person.

  The Grissom Memorial, a tall limestone monument representing the Redstone rocket and Mercury capsule, dedicated in downtown Mitchell, Indiana, in 1981. The Virgil I. Grissom Memorial in Spring Mill State Park near his hometown opened in 1971. Schools named after him include Virgil I. Grissom Elementary School in Houston built in 1967 and multiple institutions across Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, and Alabama. Bunker Hill Air Force Base renamed itself Grissom Air Force Base on the 12th of May 1968.