BuffettNews.com

46 years ago today (Jan 27, 1967) NASA astronauts Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Edward White II and Roger Chaffee were lost in a capsule fire during a ground test of the Apollo systems.

http://www.apollo1.org/TheCrew.aspx

It especially bothers me that Grissom's place in history is marred by writer Tom Wolfe's slanderous treatment of him in The Right Stuff. The later movie of the same name compounded the injustice. Contrary to Wolfe's portrayal, Grissom was cleared of any responsibility for the loss of his Mercury capsule and he enjoyed the confidence of both NASA management and his fellow astronauts, so much so that he was selected to command the first Apollo mission, which was scheduled to launch a month after the fatal fire in which he was killed.

I took both the book and the film as fictional truth. There was talk at the time he had 'screwed the pooch' but he was cleared and was considered valuable enough to be assigned the dangerous first Apollo mission. The film also makes Yeager out to be a homespun hero. If you've ever spent time with him he's kind of an an SOB.