NASA's Day of Remembrance: Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia

On January 27, 1967, fire swept through the Apollo command module during a preflight test, and Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died inside. Fifty-five years later, on January 27, 2022, NASA marked its annual Day of Remembrance with a short film honoring the Apollo 1 crew, the crews of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, and all the members of the NASA family who lost their lives furthering exploration and discovery.

The three losses

In the film's words

The film's narration, crew by crew. Of Apollo 1: "We remember the loss of those lives. We don't stop our quest… we continue to move forward in that mission of scientific discovery."

Of Challenger: "We come together today to mourn the loss of seven brave Americans, to share the grief that we all feel and perhaps in that sharing, to find the strength to bear our sorrow and the courage to look for the seeds of hope. Sometimes when we reach for the stars, we fall short, but we must pick ourselves up again and press on."

Of Columbia: "This day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country… Our journey into space will go on. In the skies today, we saw destruction and tragedy, yet farther than we can see there's comfort and hope."

It closes: "In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice so others could reach the stars."

Sources

Based on "NASA Remembers Fallen Heroes," a NASA film in the NASA Image and Video Library, a work of the United States government in the public domain.