![]() NASA temporarily halted the Apollo program, which resumed in November 1967 with the unmanned flight of Apollo 4. Sadly, on January 27, 1967, as the astronauts conducted pre-flight testing, an electrical fire broke out leading to conditions inside the capsule that took the lives of all three of the Apollo 1 astronauts. Months of training passed, and Grissom, White and Chaffee were all eager for their preparation to be completed so their mission could get underway. Training for the mission began in the spring of 1966. Gus Grissom was made Commander, Ed White was Senior Pilot, and Roger B. After two and a half years at NASA, Roger was assigned to his first mission, as part of the crew of Apollo 1, which was intended to be the Apollo program’s first manned flight, entering low-earth orbit. There was academic training, jungle survival training, and, of course, training in spacecraft simulators. His family relocated to Houston, Texas, where Roger began training in earnest. Roger passed all the tests and was made an official member of NASA’s Astronaut Corps on October 18, 1963. Based on this interest he was included in an initial astronaut applicant pool in 1962, and, after starting a Masters Degree program in reliability engineering at Dayton, Ohio’s Air Force Institute of Technology, was put through astronaut training. ![]() Roger’s experiences as a pilot were part of a larger goal – he wanted to be an astronaut, to fly in outer space. Roger’s extensive flight training continued, with his son Stephen being born while Roger was training in Africa. Just before Roger left, his daughter Sheryl was born. He trained on the T-34 and T-28 in Pensacola, then was sent to Kingsville, Texas to learn to fly the F9F Cougar jet. They had just enough time for a two-week honeymoon in Colorado before heading to Pensacola, Florida for Roger’s period of flight training. Navy on August 22nd, 1957 and married Martha on August 24th. That junior year at Purdue was also when Roger met fellow student Martha Horn, whom he eventually married in 1957, just after finishing his Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. By the time he was a junior he was teaching freshmen mathematics classes at Purdue. After a year, however, he transferred to Purdue University in Indiana. Roger’s path to a NASA career began with the study of aeronautical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He attended Grand Rapids’ Central High School, excelling in mathematics and science, and graduating fifth in his class in 1953. He joined the Boy Scouts at age 13, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout. As a child in Michigan, Roger enjoyed playing outdoors, as well as tinkering with toy airplanes, model railroad sets and electronic radios. The Greenville hospital didn’t want to expose their patients to the illness, so Roger’s mother joined her parents in Grand Rapids and Roger was born there, returning to Greenville after his father’s illness had passed.Īfter spending his first seven years in Greenville, Roger moved with his family to Grand Rapids in 1942 after his father accepted a transfer. Although his family was based in Greenville, Michigan, Roger’s father Don came down with scarlet fever, which posed a serious danger to his wife Blanche (known as “Mike”) and the new baby. ![]() Chaffee, astronaut, pilot and engineer, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 15, 1935. ![]()
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