Grissom a whistleblower? Noob intro.

[ShowCon]

Hey gang,

First post here, but I've been lurking for many moons.

First, an intro:

I'm a 36-year-old entertainment tech in Orlando, FL, specializing in show control systems, fireworks, lasers, and lighting. I've been a space enthusiast for as long as I can remember, being particularly interested in the design and engineering behind space hardware. My father gave me a book put out by Gulf Oil called "We Came In Peace" when I was about 7. Been hooked ever since.

I'm one of the many lurkers here who have learned a great deal about the space program from the well-thought-out, detailed replies to the HB claims. Keep it up. I think the HBs that post here really just serve as a catalyst for reasoned discussion among people who are interested in learning more about the world around them. The hoax stuff has been put to rest long ago. I guess nobody told the HBs though.

And now, my question:

This goes more toward HB psychology than the hoax theory itself. The HBs claim that Gus Grissom was 'silenced' because he was about to blow the lid off the whole hoax. Ed White and Roger Chaffee were just collateral damage. If Gus was about to blow the whistle, that implies that he hadn't actually said anything to anyone about it yet. If that's the case, how do the HBs know about it?

On a related topic, if you were one of the almost 1/2 million people who worked on the Apollo hoax that were told to keep silent under threat of death, wouldn't the best place for you to be be in the public spotlight, where any attempt on your life would arouse great suspicion?

Just wondering,

Doug

[LunarOrbit]

Welcome aboard, Doug.

Shortly before the Apollo 1 fire Gus Grissom said this at a press conference:

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

He didn't say "the Apollo capsule is a death trap and I refuse to fly in it", or "the entire space program is nothing but a hoax", which is what you might expect from someone who was going to blow the whistle.

I think the whole idea that Grissom was "silenced" in a horrible accident that almost brought an end to the Apollo program is pretty silly. If an astronaut is going to jeopardize the space program you don't kill him in a way that jeopardizes the space program.

[nomuse]

Welcome to the board, ShowCon. I'm doubly pleased to greet you as that adds another theater tech to our roster (my count is around five of us now).

[PeterB]

G'day ShowCon and welcome to the board.

Shortly before the Apollo 1 fire, Grissom hung a lemon on a simulator to show his dissatisfaction with it. In reality, this was because it was unreliable at the time, and not an accurate reflection of the Command Module it was supposed to be simulating. HBs have mistakenly claimed that he hung the lemon on the actual Command Module. This can therefore be claimed as the basis for a suggestion he was dissatisfied with NASA and about to blow the whistle.

Add that mistaken view to the reality of the fire, and HBs can claim that the fire was to silence him.

But that then raises the question of why Grissom would show his hand. Why not keep silent and just go striaght to the media?

[turbonium]

A few questions to what will surely be views that argue against murder (or not?)....

What about his son, who is quite adamant it was murder

Does he have evidence, as I recall he has claimed to be in posession of, that proves his father was murdered?

I haven't yet looked into this issue beyond skimming some articles, so I thought you guys could provide a bit of a primer for me.

Cheers.

[Jason Thompson]

What about his son, who is quite adamant it was murder

What about the rest of his family, who aren't? It is not uncommon for people close to such things to be unable to accept reality. Scott Grissom seems to me like someone who desperately wants to blame someone for the death of his father and cannot accept the possibility that it was an accident that cannot be laid at any one person's door.

Does he have evidence, as I recall he has claimed to be in posession of, that proves his father was murdered?

He claimed that a small piece of metal he came into possession of (don't ask me how he came to be in possession of it) was used to cross-circuit a couple of connections behind the control panel and cause the spark that started the fire. Unfortunately this claim was thoroughly investigated, at Scott Grissom's insistence, and found to be false. A thorough investigation showed that it was a piece of a bracket used to hold some piece of equipment behind the control panel, and that it was cut out of the bracket during the dismantling procedure after the fire. If I recall correctly the strongest evidence for this was that the cut surface was clean and showed no signs of having been exposed to fire, while the other surfaces, that would have been exposed during the fire, showed clear signs of its effects. The report is available online, but I can't recall the link right now.

[Count Zero]

Welcome to the world of the de-lurked, Doug!

showcon said:

My father gave me a book put out by Gulf Oil called "We Came In Peace" when I was about 7. Been hooked ever since.

Oddly enough, I have a copy of that book sitting on my desk, back home, right now.

[sts60]

Welcome, Doug!

Given events of the past few years, I had to snort when the words "Gulf", "Oil", and "We Came in Peace" jumbled into my head. But I digress.

Your comments are perceptive. How do HBs "know" someone was about to blow the whistle? Well, it's awfully easy to ascribe intentions to a dead man, and the standard of evidence in the HB world is awfully low. But then, you knew that.

As for what you and LunarOrbit said about publicity, that, too, goes to the silliness of HB claims. Why kill someone in the most visible and damaging way possible? It makes no sense. Did you know that some HBs claim NASA blew up Challenger to keep Christa MacAuliffe from talking about seeing stars in space? Never mind that other astronauts had already talked about it, or the endless hours of NASA TV downlink from the payload bay cameras showing stars during orbital night...

[JayUtah]

What about his son, who is quite adamant it was murder

I've had extensive conversations with Scott Grissom. I found him to be quite immature and irrational.

Does he have evidence, as I recall he has claimed to be in posession of, that proves his father was murdered?

I examined his evidence, at his request, through photographs. I found it to be extremely flimsy. All he had at the time was a parts bag pertaining to a certain switch. In the parts bag there was a shim-like piece of metal that had been crudely cut, with no part number. It had some pitting on it that was consistent with an electrical short circuit. Grissom lept to the conclusion that this piece had been fastened between the switch and panel in such a way -- he couldn't say exactly how -- as to abrade the switch wiring harness and cause a short circuit.

The switch wiring, however, was intact. And I could not see how the piece of metal could be fastened as he said -- it interfered with the anti-rotation washer. I could not see how it could have cut the wires as suggested -- it was nowhere near the wiring harness. And the sooting patterns indicated there was nothing on the switch but the switch. There was simply no evidence -- and considerable counterevidence -- that the switch had been doctored as he suggested.

Then, through some collective detective work, we found out that NASA had been informed of this evidence and had been directed by Congress to investigate it on Grissom's behalf in order to identify the stray metal piece. The report had not been published in NASA's normal fashion in order to protect the sensitivity of the rest of the Grissom family, and of the White and Chaffee families, who do not believe Scott Grissom at all.

Thanks to Scott Garber at NASA, I received permission to publish a copy of the report.

www.clavius.org/bibhill.html

I then asked Scott certain questions regarding the report, which I felt conclusively identified the metal as having been cut post-fire from a control panel support bracket. Based on his answers I was able to determine that he indeed knew of the report and had apparently known about it for some time. He simply declined to mention it to any of his followers. After I published the report, Scott essentially stopped talking to me, except to call me grade school playground names every so often.

[Bob B.]

Welcome, Doug. I'm glad you decided to delurk.

[JayUtah]

Scott Grissom seems to me like someone who desperately wants to blame someone for the death of his father and cannot accept the possibility that it was an accident that cannot be laid at any one person's door.

Originally he blamed NASA, even going so far as to call Borman and Lovell "felons" every time he mentioned their names, as if it were a title. Apparently he believed these two astronauts knew of the plot to murder the Apollo 1 crew and testified otherwise to Congress.

He claimed that a small piece of metal he came into possession of (don't ask me how he came to be in possession of it)...

Scott received permission in the late 1990s to examine the disassembled Apollo 1 capsule at its storage facility in Langley, Virginia. He wanted to see whether it could be prepared as a museum display. The CM is a mere carcass, with the panels and interior equipment removed and stored in boxes in the facility. While attempting to reassemble some of the panels, he noticed the foreign part in the parts bag of a switch.

Unfortunately this claim was thoroughly investigated, at Scott Grissom's insistence, and found to be false.

Not exactly. Grissom and his mother immediately went public with their claims and theories. Congressman Sensenbrenner asked for the investigation based on those public claims. The report was delivered to him. Originally S. Grissom claimed he did not know of the report and had not seen it. But then he demonstrated knowledge of the report one could have only had from reading it. (This was before I published it, when it was still relatively unknown.)

A thorough investigation showed that it was a piece of a bracket...
If I recall correctly the strongest evidence for this was that the cut surface was clean and showed no signs of having been exposed to fire...

Close. The top and bottom surfaces are anodized, as are the inside edges of a small hole that has been drilled through it. The outside edges are not anodized, indicating it was cut from its ancestor part after manufacturing. There was little fire damage behind the control panel in question -- just some sooting.

The remainder of the bracket was recovered from the storage facility. The alien piece fits very well (there is a void where another, still missing, piece should fit). The marks on the edges are consistent with the cut edges of the bracket, and the geometry is fully consistent with a rotary grinding-wheel type cutting tool. The thickness, composition, and coating of the piece are identical to the bracket.

There is no question that the piece was cut from the bracket. The report mentions that it was likely cut so that it could be examined under an optical microscope. The pitting on the piece is consistent with electrical arcing; all arc evidence was examined carefully as part of the investigation. It was apparently determined that the arc had occurred long before the fire, probably during assembly and checkout.

[ShowCon]

Thanks for the welcome, everybody.

I never could understand Scott Grissom's take on the AS-204 fire. You would think that growing up as part of the small, tight-knit astronaut/test pilot community had taught him that accidents happen. Or does he think that Elliot See, Charlie Bassett, Ted Freeman, and C.C. Williams were also 'rubbed out'?

Doug

[Dead Hoosiers]

It had crossed my mind that the fire was payback for the Liberty Bell incident, but since that makes no sense at all, as LO explains above, I've had to drop Grissom's death from my conspiracy theory list.

[JayUtah]

It had crossed my mind that the fire was payback for the Liberty Bell incident, but since that makes no sense at all, as LO explains above...

Ironically that's one of the easiest of the misleading notions to believe. Most people know Grissom's Mercury mission only from The Right Stuff, either the book or the film. John Glenn was Wolfe's primary source, and Glenn didn't like Grissom. So Wolfe's story, while inspiring, isn't especially accurate historically. It might as well be The Space Race According to John Glenn.

There is no evidence that Grissom activated the hatch on Liberty Bell, and considerable possibility that it was accidentally activated by a parachute shroud from the outside. When you get rid of the last vestiges of unfounded suspicion, you realize that NASA owes Grissom an apology for Liberty Bell, not the other way around. But Wolfe's version of the story is unfair.

All the astronauts I've contacted expressed nothing but admiration for Grissom. Biased, perhaps, since he was dead. But Ed Mitchell called him "the astronaut's astronaut." There is no question among his peers -- except perhaps for Glenn -- that he was the most competent astronaut.

The clincher is that NASA chose Grissom to command the shakedown missions of both the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. That's a big responsibility and thus a great honor. Grissom rode contractors and kept them honest. NASA liked that. Much has been made of his disparaging comments and complaints, but that's what made Grissom the way he was; and that's what NASA liked about him. If Grissom complained about the spacecraft or the simulator, NASA didn't take those personally. They didn't build the spacecraft. NASA was more likely to take Gus' comments to the contractor and say, "See, now fix it."

The only time Grissom got in trouble was when he called an unauthorized press conference. That's a no-no, but a minor one. The PAO likes to be involved on those. I get in trouble if I speak to the press without my own company's public-affairs people involved. That's a standard requirement of just about any organization.

I've had to drop Grissom's death from my conspiracy theory list.

Not out of contrariness, but these kinds of things are what I pay the most attention to. However you slice it, the Apollo 1 fire should not have happened. It was within our power to prevent.

[Dead Hoosiers]

Thanks, Utah, for the exonerating info. We took his death pretty hard.