well,

This is a pretty important question, even if it isn't a conspiracy, per se. The fact is that America's second spacecraft sank... and afterwards people wondered why. Some pointed to a design/manufacturing flaw while others pointed to pilot error.

Well... first of all, it should be noted that Gus was involved in two more space projects. He both flew a Gemini capsule and was a major contributor to its design. He then went on to the Apollo project where, unfortunately, he died with his crew due to a major engineering oversight that involved the atmosphere within the capsule.

So, to be perfectly clear, in the real world Grissom was certainly not looked down upon. He was involved in three of the USA's greatest projects... a record that stands for itself. Though the movie -- which, I agree, is otherwise pretty good -- makes him look bad... I don't see anything that indicates that NASA saw him in a bad light.

But... as for the LB7 loss... well... I think that a group recently retrived it from the ocean and put it on display at a midwestern space museum (In Kansas City, I think). They investigated the explosive bolt residue and concluded that Gus wasn't responsible for the sinking.

When they where discussing the raising of liberty 7, the only person that was very outspoken that it should not be raised was his wife. That makes me wonder what she knew that the rest of us did not.

I have nothing but respect for those guys, and absolutely love the movie, “the right Stuff”, however; whether if it was a communications failure like they implied in the movie, or he just got claustrophobic, I think that he pulled the handle.






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[edit on 9/30/2004 by defcon5]

Well, there's also "political" side in it.
It was cold war's space race era so US admitting that there was design flaw would have been like small victory for Soviets.

E_T,

I agree with you. There was a HUGE political dimension assosiated with the project. A design failure would be kept quiet.

Here is my take. If Gus had screwed the pooch to use The Right Stuff lingo, who on earth would they have had him in the Apollo missions? If he really screwed something up they would have never let him into another cockpit.

I also agree with you Amorymeltzer that the movie made him out pretty bad and has had a huge negative influence as the years go by. If you live or a visiting the SF Bay Area, the capsule is on display at Chabot college here.

Gus never went into space alone again. They where not going to waste a man that they had spent millions training, when he would never be alone, or in that small a capsule again. If it where a political thing they would have covered up the loss, and replaced the capsule with another.

onlyinmydreams, i agree that NASA wouldnt ever even consider thinking short of grissom, but everyones always had their opinions, secret or not. the fact remains it was much less of a deal than shepard, even after the whole first/second thing was dealt with.

i dont think he did it (as stated). nothing in his past history seems to have indicated he would falter in any way. the capsule was especialyl enclosed, but nothing he couldnt handle; hed trained for ages.

also, it was the first time the explosive hatch was there, so its very easy to make a mistake. i cud buy the political thing. it may not seem like much, but our relations with the USSR were so strained, especially by this, anything to make a mockery of us/US would have been unacceptable.

Don't you think it is ironic that the explosive bolts the caused Liberty Bell 7's hatch to blow and sink was also a leading factor in Apollo 1's crew not being able to egress.

Gus Grissom was a great pilot and astronaut. If NASA really thought that he was incompetent, he would have never flown in Gemini or Apollo.

Part of the missions of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were to test and evaluate the systems, and accomplish a landing on the moon.

Bottom line up front: Gus Grissom did his job and did it well, people don't see the end result. Redesign of hatch, egress, oxygen system, etc.