“Roger That!” The Life of Roger B. Chaffee, Michigan’s First Astronaut

by Glen E. Swanson

From the earliest days of wireless communication, the Morse code letter R (dit-dah-dit) has been used to indicate ‘O.K.—understood.’ So when advances in telecommunications eventually allowed voices to be heard, ‘Roger’ was the logical voice-phone equivalent. Variations of the word, including “Roger That” eventually came into use by pilots to mean ‘your message received and understood.’ Later it came into general use to mean ‘all right, OK.’

On the afternoon of January 27, 1967, the three prime crewmembers of the first crewed Apollo mission left the NASA transfer van that took them out to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. There, the fully suited men rode the elevator to the 218-foot level of the launch tower, where they crossed the access arm to climb into their spacecraft. Inside the Apollo capsule, rookie astronaut and Grand Rapids native, Roger Bruce Chaffee, the youngest of the three, sat to the far left of his two crewmates, Edward White and Virgil Grissom, both veterans of previous spaceflights.

The day’s testing by NASA had not gone well. This was a “plugs out” test of the entire launch vehicle, the closest thing to an actual launch that technicians would experience without igniting the rocket’s engines. Throughout the afternoon, the crew reported unusual smells from the oxygen loop in their suits. Poor communications between the ground and spacecraft also plagued the test with Grissom, the mission commander, remarking, “How are we going to get to the moon if we can’t talk between three buildings?” There were no “Roger Thats” exchanged on the communications loop. Things were not all right.

At around 6:31 p.m. a spark ignited in the lower equipment bay of the capsule beneath Grissom’s couch. Aided by the 100% pure oxygen environment, fire quickly formed in the fully pressurized spacecraft. The crew did not have a chance.

As a nation mourned the loss of three heroes, NASA’s manned space program was put on hold as astronauts and engineers tried to figure out what had gone wrong. History comforts us in showing that the tragic loss of the crew of Apollo 1 did not go in vain as the fledgling young space agency learned from the mistakes of its past.

Next year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing when the two-man crew of the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle successfully touched down on the Sea of Tranquility. There, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. became the first two humans to set foot upon the surface of another world thereby fulfilling the dreams of countless visionaries while at the same time completing the goal first set forth by President John F. Kennedy of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth “before this decade is out.”

Apollo is the story of the first twenty-four humans to leave their own world to journey to another and of the nearly half a million people who helped them get there. None of this would have been possible, however, without the sacrifice of Roger B. Chaffee and his fellow crewmates. Noted scholars of America’s space program argue that the changes resulting from the Apollo 1 tragedy saved the manned lunar program because it more than likely prevented an even more serious accident that might have either delayed the program beyond 1969 or terminated it entirely.

Glen E. Swanson has held a lifelong interest in the history of spaceflight. After working in education and the aerospace industry, he founded Quest, the world’s only scholarly journal dedicated to the history of spaceflight now in its 25th year of publication. Glen served as the chief historian of NASA’s Johnson Space Center where he managed their oral history program to help preserve the stories of the half a million people that worked in support of the Apollo program. His award-winning book, Before This Decade is Out: Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program, now entering its third printing, contains a selection of some of those oral histories. After leaving NASA, he returned to Grand Rapids where he served as a lab instructor in the physics department at Grand Valley State University. Glen is currently a graduate student at Western Michigan University pursuing a PhD in history. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife Deana Weibel, an anthropologist teaching at GVSU, and their ten-year-old son.

“Roger That!”: The Life of Roger B. Chaffee, Michigan’s First Astronaut, Thursday, September 13, 2018 at the Grand Rapids Public Library presented by Glen E. Swanson.

GRAND RAPIDS — On Saturday, May 19, a seven-foot bronze statue of Apollo 1 fallen hero, Roger B. Chaffee was unveiled. Chaffee’s widow and daughter, along with Skylab and 3 time Space Shuttle Astronaut, Jack Lousma spoke at the event. Funds for the statue were raised by the Michigan Military Preservation Society, a veterans history group and the Lowell American Legion Post #152. The sculptor to capture the likeness of Chaffee was none other than J. Brett Grill, another Grand Rapids native.