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UN Trade and Development

UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development but rebranded to its current name on the occasion of its 60th anniversary in 2024. It reports to both the General Assembly and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). UNCTAD is composed of 195 member states and works with non-governmental organizations worldwide; its permanent secretariat is at UNOG in Geneva, Switzerland.

The primary objective of UNCTAD is to formulate policies relating to all aspects of development, including trade, aid, transport, finance and technology. It was created in response to concerns among developing countries that existing international institutions like GATT (since replaced by the World Trade Organization), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank were not properly organized to handle the particular problems of developing countries; UNCTAD would provide a forum where developing nations could discuss and address problems relating to their economic development.

One of UNCTAD's principal achievements was conceiving and implementing the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which promotes the export of manufactured goods from developing countries. In the 1970s and 1980s, UNCTAD was closely associated with the New International Economic Order (NIEO), a set of proposals that sought to reduce economic dependency and inequality between developing and developed countries.

UNCTAD conferences ordinarily take place every four years, with the first occurring in Geneva in 1964; fifteen subsequent meetings have taken place worldwide, with the most recent held in Bridgetown, Barbados, from 3–8 October 2021 (albeit virtually, due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

UNCTAD has 400 staff members and a biannual (2010–2011) regular budget of US$138 million in core expenditures and US$72 million in extra-budgetary technical assistance funds. It is a member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, a consortium of UN entities that work to promote sustainable socioeconomic development.

Membership
As of May 2018, UNCTAD has 195 member states: all UN members plus UN observer states Palestine and the Holy See. UNCTAD members are divided into four categories based on United Nations Regional Groups, with six members unassigned: Kiribati, Nauru, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tuvalu. List A consists mostly of countries in the UN's African Group and Asia-Pacific Group. List B consists of countries of the Western European and Others Group. List C consists of countries of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC). List D consists of countries of the Eastern European Group.

The lists, originally defined in 19th General Assembly resolution 1995 serve to balance geographical distribution of member states' representation on the Trade Development Board and other UNCTAD structures. The lists are similar to those of UNIDO, a UN specialized agency.

The most recent member is Palestine

The full lists are as follows:
 * List A (99 members): Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, China, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Micronesia, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

 * List B (32 members): Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States.

 * List C (33 members): Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela.

 * List D (24 members): Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

 * Not assigned countries (6 members): Kiribati, Nauru, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tuvalu.

Other states that do not participate are Cook Islands, Niue, and the states with limited recognition.

Meetings
The inter-governmental work is done at five levels of meetings:
 * The UNCTAD Conference – held every four years:
 * The UNCTAD Trade and Development Board – the board manages the work of UNCTAD between two conferences and meets up to three times every year.
 * Four UNCTAD Commissions and one Working Party – these meet more often than the board to take up policy, programme and budgetary issues.
 * Expert Meetings – the commissions will convene expert meetings on selected topics to provide substantive and expert input for Commission policy discussions.

The 15th quadrennial meeting took place virtually in Bridgetown, Barbados, from 25 to 30 April 2021.

Geneva, 1964
In response to developing country (Least Developed Country, LDC) anxiety at their worsening position in world trade, the United Nations General Assembly voted for a 'one off' conference. These early discussions paved the way for new IMF facilities to provide finance for shortfalls in commodity earnings and for the Generalised Preference Schemes which increased access to Northern markets for manufactured imports from the South. At Geneva, the LDCs were successful in their proposal for the conference with its secretariat to become a permanent organ of the UN, with meetings every four years. At the Geneva meeting, Raúl Prebisch—a prominent Argentinian economist from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)—became the organization's first secretary-general.

New Delhi, 1968
The New Delhi Conference, held in February and March 1968, was a forum that allowed developing countries to reach agreement on basic principles of their development policies. The conference in New Delhi was an opportunity for schemes to be finally approved. The conference provided a major impetus in persuading the North to follow up UNCTAD I resolutions, in establishing generalized preferences. The target for private and official flows to LDCs was raised to 1% of the North's GNP, but the developed countries failed to achieve the target by a specific date. This has proven a continuing point of debate at UNCTAD conferences.

The conference led to the International Sugar Agreement, which seeks to stabilize world sugar prices.

Santiago, 1972
The Santiago Conference, 15 April 1972, was the third occasion on which the developing countries have confronted the rich with the need to use trade and aid measures more effectively to improve living standards in the developing world. Discussion centred on the international monetary system and specifically on the South's proposal that a higher proportion of new special drawing rights (SDRs) should be allocated to LDCs as a form of aid (the so-called 'link'). In Santiago, substantial disagreements arose within the Group of 77 (G77) despite preconference meetings. There was disagreement over the SDR proposal and between those in the G77 who wanted fundamental changes such as a change in the voting allocations in the South's favour at the IMF and those (mainly the Latin American countries) who wanted much milder reforms. This internal dissent seriously weakened the group's negotiating position and led to a final agreed motion which recommended that the IMF should examine the link and that further research be conducted into general reforms. This avoided firm commitments to act on the 'link' or general reform, and the motion was passed by conference.

Nairobi, 1976, and Manila, 1979
UNCTAD IV, held in Nairobi in May 1976, showed relative success compared to its predecessors. An Overseas Development Institute briefing paper of April 1979 highlights one reason for success as being down to the 1973 Oil Crisis and the encouragement of LDCs to make gains through producers of other commodities. The principal result of the conference was the adoption of the Integrated Programme for Commodities. The programme covered the principal commodity exports and its objectives aside from the stabilisation of commodity prices were: "Just and remunerative pricing, taking into account world inflation", the expansion of processing, distribution and control of technology by LDCs and improved access to markets.

UNCTAD V, held in Manila in 1979 in the wake of the Nairobi Conference, focused on the key issues of: protectionism in developing countries and the need for structural change, trade in commodities and manufactures aid and international monetary reform, technology, shipping, and economic co-operation among developing countries. An Overseas Development Institute briefing paper written in 1979 focuses its attention on the key issues regarding the LDCs' role as the Group of 77 in the international community.

Belgrade, 1983
The sixth UN Conference on Trade and Development in Belgrade, 6–30 June 1983, was held against the background of earlier UNCTADs which have substantially failed to resolve many of the disagreements between the developed and developing countries and of a world economy in its worst recession since the early 1930s. The key issues of the time were finance and adjustment, commodity price stabilisation and trade.

Bridgetown, 2021
The fifteenth session of UNCTAD was originally scheduled in 2020 but was delayed until 2021 due to COVID-19. This was the first time the conference was held in a Small Island Developing State (SIDS).

Achievements
One of UNCTAD's earliest and most notable accomplishments was the formulation and implementation of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which offered special tariff concessions to exports of manufactured goods by developing countries. Accepting this argument, the developed countries formulated the GSP scheme under which manufacturers' exports and import of some agricultural goods from the developing countries enter duty-free or at reduced rates in the developed countries. Since imports of such items from other developed countries are subject to the normal rates of duties, imports of the same items from developing countries would enjoy a competitive advantage.

Reports
UNCTAD produces a number of topical reports, including:
 * The Trade and Development Report
 * The Trade and Environment Review
 * The World Investment Report
 * The Economic Development in Africa Report
 * The Least Developed Countries Report
 * UNCTAD Statistics
 * Digital Economy Report (formerly known as the Information Economy Report)
 * The Review of Maritime Transport
 * The International Accounting and Reporting Issues Annual Review
 * The Technology and Innovation Report

Other
UNCTAD conducts technical cooperation programmes such as ASYCUDA, DMFAS, EMPRETEC and WAIPA.

In addition, UNCTAD conducts certain technical cooperation in collaboration with the World Trade Organization through the joint International Trade Centre (ITC), a technical cooperation agency targeting operational and enterprise-oriented aspects of trade development.

UNCTAD hosts the Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR).

Partnership initiatives
UNCTAD is a founding member of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative along with the Principles for Responsible Investment, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), and the UN Global Compact.

title: UN Trade and Development


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Wikipedia:MediaWiki (archive)

MediaWiki is the server software that runs Wikipedia and its sister wiki sites. See MediaWiki or MediaWiki. For details of the Mediawiki namespace see MediaWiki namespace or (for messages contained) see Special:Allmessages.''

You can download the latest copy of the MediaWiki package from Sourceforge at the MediaWiki Project page.

Configuration status
Test. You can see what version of the MediaWiki software the English Wikipedia is running by visiting Special:Version.

June 24, 2004
The following MediaWiki features are currently disabled in the English Wikipedia (and other large Wikimedia wikis) for performance reasons:
 * Individual page access counters (for the foreseeable future)
 * Most wanted, popular pages (temporary). As a temporary replacement the following static lists have been produced from a database dump: Most referenced pages, Most wanted pages

Recently, search, orphaned, short, and long pages were reenabled.

History
Wikipedia and its sister Wikimedia projects run on the same GPL-ed free software, called MediaWiki or Software Phase III (see MediaWiki). It was switched from UseModWiki software ("Phase I") to new software, written especially for Wikipedia using the PHP programming language, on January 25, 2002 ("Phase II"); in July 2002 it was replaced by what is now called MediaWiki.

Magnus Manske was the original author of the software, which is written in PHP and uses an underlying MySQL relational database. The software is released under the GNU General Public License. Other programmers are strongly urged to get involved.

MediaWiki was made for wikipedia and later for its sister sites and then released as the open-source MediaWiki

Change from Phase II to Phase III
On Saturday, July 20, 2002, Wikipedia moved to a new high-capacity server and new, hopefully more efficient, software base. The new software was designed to look and behave as similarly to the previous phase II software as possible, but a few new features and changes should be noted:

 * Search function now indexes 2- and 3-letter words
 * New side-by-side diffs of article changes
 * "Floating" sidebar option for some modern web browsers
 * A few minor changes to wikitext syntax (see How to edit a page)
 * Since anonymous users, while not having user pages, still have user contributions pages, their IP numbers in lists such as Recentchanges and article histories link to their contributions
 * Support for maths formulae using TeX markup
 * Better support for auto-posting "bots"
 * A new static page caching system has greatly reduced system load
 * The database server and the page server now run on separate machines

The Phase III software is robust, and under active development. Many more features have been, and are expected to be, added to the Phase III software, together with bug fixes and improvements in stability. You are encouraged to submit bug reports.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Wikipedia:MediaWiki (archive)


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Gus Grissom

Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer and pilot in the United States Air Force, as well as one of the original men, the Mercury Seven, selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Project Mercury, a program to train and launch astronauts into outer space. Grissom was also a Project Gemini and Apollo program astronaut for NASA. As a member of the NASA Astronaut Corps, Grissom was the second American to fly in space in 1961. He was also the second American to fly in space twice, preceded only by Joe Walker with his sub-orbital X-15 flights.

Grissom was a World War II and Korean War veteran, mechanical engineer, and USAF test pilot. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with an oak leaf cluster, two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, and, posthumously, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

As commander of AS-204 (Apollo 1), Grissom died with astronauts Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee on January 27, 1967, during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Kennedy, Florida.

Early life
Virgil Ivan Grissom was born in the small town of Mitchell, Indiana, on April 3, 1926, to Dennis David Grissom (1903–1994), a signalman for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and Cecile King Grissom (1901–1995), a homemaker. Virgil was the family's second child (an older sister died in infancy shortly before his birth). He was followed by three younger siblings: a sister, Wilma, and two brothers, Norman and Lowell. Grissom started school at Riley grade school. His interest in flying began during that time, building model airplanes. He received his nickname when his friend was reading his name on a scorecard upside down and misread "Griss" as "Gus".

As a youth, Grissom attended the local Church of Christ, where he remained a lifelong member. He joined the local Boy Scout Troop and earned the rank of Star Scout. Grissom credited the Scouts for his love of hunting and fishing. He was the leader of the honor guard in his troop. His first jobs were delivering newspapers for The Indianapolis Star in the morning and the Bedford Times in the evening. In the summer he picked fruit in area orchards and worked at a dry-goods store. He also worked at a local meat market, a service station, and a clothing store in Mitchell.

Grissom started attending Mitchell High School in 1940. He wanted to play varsity basketball but he was too short. His father encouraged him to find sports he was more suited for, and he joined the swimming team. Although he excelled at mathematics, Grissom was an average high school student in other subjects. He graduated from high school in 1944.

In addition, Grissom occasionally spent time at a local airport in Bedford, Indiana, where he first became interested in aviation. A local attorney who owned a small plane would take him on flights and taught him the basics of flying.

Grissom was a Freemason.

World War II
World War II began while Grissom was still in high school, but he was eager to join the armed services upon graduation. Grissom enlisted as an aviation cadet in the U.S. Army Air Forces during his senior year in high school, and completed an entrance exam in November 1943. Grissom was inducted into the U.S. Army Air Forces on August 8, 1944, at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. He was sent to Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, for five weeks of basic flight training, and was later stationed at Brooks Field in San Antonio, Texas. In January 1945 Grissom was assigned to Boca Raton Army Airfield in Florida. Although he was interested in becoming a pilot, most of Grissom's time before his discharge in 1945 was spent as a clerk.

Post-war employment
Grissom was discharged from military service in November 1945, after the war had ended, and returned to Mitchell, where he took a job at Carpenter Body Works, a local bus manufacturing business. Grissom was determined to make his career in aviation and attend college. Using the G.I. Bill for partial payment of his school tuition, Grissom enrolled at Purdue University in September 1946.

Due to a shortage of campus housing during her husband's first semester in college in West Lafayette, Indiana, Grissom's wife, Betty, stayed in Mitchell living with her parents, while Grissom lived in a rented apartment with another male student. Betty Grissom joined her husband on campus during his second semester, and the couple settled into a small, one-bedroom apartment. Grissom continued his studies at Purdue, worked part-time as a cook at a local restaurant, and took summer classes to finish college early, while his wife worked the night shift as a long-distance operator for the Indiana Bell Telephone Company to help pay for his schooling and their living expenses. Grissom graduated from Purdue with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering in February 1950.

Korean War
After he graduated from Purdue, Grissom re-enlisted in the newly formed U.S. Air Force. He was accepted into the Air Cadet Basic Training Program at Randolph Air Force Base in Universal City, Texas. Upon completion of the program, he was assigned to Williams Air Force Base in Mesa, Arizona, where his wife, Betty, and infant son, Scott, joined him, but the family remained there only briefly. In March 1951, Grissom received his pilot wings and a commission as a second lieutenant. Nine months later, in December 1951, Grissom and his family moved into new living quarters in Presque Isle, Maine, where he was assigned to Presque Isle Air Force Base and became a member of the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron.

With the ongoing Korean War, Grissom's squadron was dispatched to the war zone in February 1952. There he flew as an F-86 Sabre replacement pilot and was reassigned to the 334th Fighter Squadron of the 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing stationed at Kimpo Air Base. He flew one hundred combat missions during approximately six months of service in Korea, including multiple occasions when he broke up air raids from North Korean MiGs. On March 11, 1952, Grissom was promoted to first lieutenant and was cited for his "superlative airmanship" for his actions on March 23, 1952, when he flew cover for a photo reconnaissance mission. Grissom was also awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with an oak leaf cluster for his military service in Korea.

After flying his quota of one hundred missions, Grissom asked to remain in Korea to fly another twenty-five flights, but his request was denied. Grissom returned to the United States to serve as a flight instructor at Bryan AFB in Bryan, Texas, where he was joined by his wife, Betty, and son, Scott. The Grissoms' second child, Mark, was born there in 1953. Grissom soon learned that flight instructors faced their own set of on-the-job risks. During a training exercise with a cadet, the trainee pilot caused a flap to break off from their two-seat trainer, sending it into a roll. Grissom quickly climbed from the rear seat of the small aircraft to take over the controls and safely land it.

In August 1955, Grissom was reassigned to the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio of Air University. After completing the year-long course he earned a bachelor's degree in aeromechanics in 1956. In October 1956, he entered the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California, and returned to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio in May 1957, after attaining the rank of captain. Grissom served as a test pilot assigned to the fighter branch.

NASA career

In 1959, Grissom received an official teletype message instructing him to report to an address in Washington, D.C., wearing civilian clothes. The message was classified "Top Secret" and Grissom was ordered not to discuss its contents with anyone. Of the 508 military candidates who were considered, he was one of 110 test pilots whose credentials had earned them an invitation to learn more about the U.S. space program in general and its Project Mercury. Grissom was intrigued by the program, but knew that competition for the final spots would be fierce.

Grissom passed the initial screening in Washington, D.C., and was among the thirty-nine candidates sent to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Aeromedical Laboratory of the Wright Air Development Center in Dayton, Ohio, to undergo extensive physical and psychological testing. He was nearly disqualified when doctors discovered that he suffered from hay fever, but was permitted to continue after he argued that his allergies would not be a problem due to the absence of ragweed pollen in space.

On April 13, 1959, Grissom received official notification that he had been selected as one of the seven Project Mercury astronauts. Grissom and the six other men, after taking a leave of absence from their respective branches of the military service, reported to the Special Task Group at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia on April 27, 1959, to begin their astronaut training.

Project Mercury

On July 21, 1961, Grissom was pilot of the second Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 4. Grissom named his spacecraft Liberty Bell 7 after the Liberty Bell, and drew a crack on it as a nod to the bell. Liberty Bell 7 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, a sub-orbital flight that lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds. After splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, the Liberty Bell 7's emergency explosive bolts unexpectedly fired, blowing off the hatch and causing water to flood into the spacecraft. Grissom quickly exited through the open hatch and into the ocean. While waiting for recovery helicopters from USS Randolph (CV-15) to pick him up, Grissom struggled to keep from drowning after his spacesuit began losing buoyancy due to an open air inlet. Grissom managed to stay afloat until he was pulled from the water by a helicopter and taken to the U.S. Navy ship. In the meantime another recovery helicopter tried to lift and retrieve the Liberty Bell 7, but the flooding spacecraft became too heavy, forcing the recovery crew to cut it loose, and it ultimately sank.

When reporters at a news conference surrounded Grissom after his space flight to ask how he felt, Grissom replied, "Well, I was scared a good portion of the time; I guess that's a pretty good indication." Grissom stated he had done nothing to cause the hatch to blow, and no definitive explanation for the incident was found. Robert F. Thompson, director of Mercury operations, was dispatched to USS Randolph (CV-15) by Space Task Group Director Robert Gilruth and spoke with Grissom upon his arrival on the aircraft carrier. Grissom explained that he had gotten ahead in the mission timeline and had removed the detonator cap, and also pulled the safety pin. Once the pin was removed, the trigger was no longer held in place and could have inadvertently fired as a result of ocean wave action, bobbing as a result of helicopter rotor wash, or other activity. NASA officials concluded Grissom had not necessarily initiated the firing of the explosive hatch, which would have required pressing a plunger that required five pounds of force to depress. Hitting this metal trigger with the hand typically left a large bruise, but Grissom was found not to have any of the telltale hand bruising.

While the debate continued about the premature detonation of Liberty Bell 7's hatch bolts, precautions were initiated for subsequent flights. Fellow Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra, at the end of his October 3, 1962, flight, remained inside his spacecraft until it was safely aboard the recovery ship, and made a point of deliberately blowing the hatch to get out of the spacecraft, bruising his hand.

Grissom's spacecraft was recovered in 1999, but no evidence was found that could conclusively explain how the explosive hatch release had occurred. Later, Guenter Wendt, pad leader for the early American crewed space launches, wrote that he believed a small cover over the external release actuator was accidentally lost sometime during the flight or splashdown. Another possible explanation was that the hatch's T-handle may have been tugged by a stray parachute suspension line, or was perhaps damaged by the heat of re-entry, and after cooling upon splashdown it contracted and caught fire. It has also been suggested that a static electricity discharge during initial contact between the spacecraft and the rescue helicopter may have caused the hatch's explosive bolts to blow. The co-pilot of the helicopter, U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant John Reinhard, had the job of using a cutting pole to snip off an antenna before the helicopter could latch onto the capsule. In the 1990s, he told a researcher that he remembered seeing an electric arc jump between the capsule and his pole right before the hatch blew. Jim Lewis, the pilot of Grissom's rescue helicopter, told Smithsonian Magazine that closer inspection of film footage made him remember the day in better detail. He recalled that "Reinhard must have cut the antenna a mere second or two before I got us in a position for him to attach our harness to the capsule lifting bale," indicating that the timing of the helicopter's approach aligned with the static discharge theory.

Project Gemini
In early 1964, Alan Shepard was grounded after being diagnosed with Ménière's disease and Grissom was designated command pilot for Gemini 3, the first crewed Project Gemini flight, which flew on March 23, 1965. This mission made Grissom the first human and thus first NASA astronaut to fly into space twice. The two-man flight on Gemini 3 with Grissom and John W. Young made three revolutions of the Earth and lasted for 4 hours, 52 minutes and 31 seconds. Grissom was one of the eight pilots of the NASA paraglider research vehicle (Paresev).

Grissom, the shortest of the original seven astronauts at five feet seven inches tall, worked very closely with the engineers and technicians from McDonnell Aircraft who built the Gemini spacecraft. Because of his involvement in the design of the first three spacecraft, his fellow astronauts humorously referred to the craft as "the Gusmobile". By July 1963 NASA discovered 14 out of its 16 astronauts could not fit themselves into the cabin and the later cockpits were modified. During this time Grissom invented the multi-axis translation thruster controller used to push the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft in linear directions for rendezvous and docking.

In a joking nod to the sinking of his Mercury craft, Grissom named the first Gemini spacecraft Molly Brown (after the popular Broadway show, The Unsinkable Molly Brown). Some NASA publicity officials were unhappy with this name and asked Grissom and his pilot, John Young, to come up with a new one. When they offered Titanic as an alternate, NASA executives decided to allow them to use the name of Molly Brown for Gemini 3, but did not use it in official references. Much to the agency's chagrin, CAPCOM Gordon Cooper gave Gemini 3 its sendoff on launch with the remark to Grissom and Young, "You're on your way, Molly Brown!" Ground controllers also used it to refer to the spacecraft throughout its flight.

After the safe return of Gemini 3, NASA announced new spacecraft would not be nicknamed. Hence, Gemini 4 was not called American Eagle as its crew had planned. The practice of nicknaming spacecraft resumed in 1967, when managers realized that the Apollo flights needed a name for each of two flight elements, the Command Module (CSM) and the Lunar Module. Lobbying by the astronauts and senior NASA administrators also had an effect. Apollo 9 used the name Gumdrop for the Command Module and Spider for the Lunar Module. However, Wally Schirra was prevented from naming his Apollo 7 spacecraft Phoenix in honor of the Apollo 1 crew because some believed that its nickname as a metaphor for "fire" might be misunderstood.

Apollo program
Grissom was backup command pilot for Gemini 6A when he was transferred to the Apollo program and was assigned as commander of the first crewed mission, AS-204, with Senior Pilot Ed White, who had flown in space on the Gemini 4 mission, when he became the first American to make a spacewalk, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. The three men were granted permission to refer to their flight as "Apollo 1" on their mission insignia patch. Problems with the simulator proved extremely annoying to Grissom, who told a reporter the problems with Apollo 1 came "in bushelfuls" and that he was skeptical of its chances to complete its fourteen-day mission. Grissom earned the nickname "Gruff Gus" by being outspoken about the technical deficiencies of the spacecraft. The engineers who programmed the Apollo training simulator had a difficult time keeping the simulator in sync with the continuous changes being made to the spacecraft. According to backup astronaut Walter Cunningham, "We knew that the spacecraft was, you know, in poor shape relative to what it ought to be. We felt like we could fly it, but let's face it, it just wasn't as good as it should have been for the job of flying the first crewed Apollo mission."

NASA pressed on. In mid-January 1967, "preparations were being made for the final pre-flight tests of Spacecraft 012." On January 22, 1967, before returning to Cape Kennedy to conduct the January 27 plugs-out test that ended his life, Grissom's wife, Betty, later recalled that he took a lemon from a tree in his back yard and explained that he intended to hang it on that spacecraft, although he actually hung the lemon on the simulator (a duplicate of the Apollo spacecraft).

Personal life
Grissom met Betty Lavonne Moore (1927–2018), in high school. They were married on July 6, 1945, at First Baptist Church in Mitchell when he was home on leave during World War II. The couple had two sons, Scott (1950), and Mark (1953). Two of Grissom's pastimes were hunting and fishing. The family also enjoyed water sports and skiing.

Death

Before Apollo 1's planned launch on February 21, 1967, the Command Module interior caught fire and burned on January 27, 1967, during a pre-launch test on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy. Astronauts Grissom, White, and Chaffee, who were working inside the closed Command Module, were asphyxiated. Awaiting launch, Grissom said, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings," then shouted "fire!" The fire's ignition source was damaged wiring. The pilots' deaths were attributed to lethal hazards in the early CSM design and conditions of the test, including a pressurized 100 percent oxygen prelaunch atmosphere, wiring and plumbing flaws, flammable materials used in the cockpit and in the astronauts' flight suits, and an inward-opening hatch that could not be opened quickly in an emergency and not at all with full internal pressure.

Grissom's funeral services and burial at Arlington National Cemetery were held on January 31, 1967. Dignitaries in attendance included President Lyndon B. Johnson, members of the U.S. Congress, and fellow NASA astronauts, among others. Grissom was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington County, Virginia, beside Roger Chaffee. White's remains are interred at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Legacy
After the accident, NASA decided to give the flight the official designation of Apollo 1 and skip to Apollo 4 for the first uncrewed flight of the Saturn V, counting the two uncrewed suborbital tests, AS-201 and 202, as part of the sequence. The Apollo spacecraft problems were corrected, with Apollo 7, commanded by Wally Schirra, launched on October 11, 1968, more than a year and a half after the Apollo 1 accident. The Apollo program reached its objective of successfully landing men on the Moon on July 20, 1969, with Apollo 11.

At the time of his death, Grissom had attained the rank of lieutenant colonel and had logged a total of 4,600 hours flying time, including 3,500 hours in jet airplanes. Some contend that Grissom could have been selected as one of the astronauts to walk on the Moon. Deke Slayton wrote that he had hoped for one of the original Mercury astronauts to go to the Moon, noting: "It wasn't just a cut-and-dried decision as to who should make the first steps on the Moon. If I had to select on that basis, my first choice would have been Gus, which both Chris Kraft and Bob Gilruth seconded." Ultimately, Alan Shepard, one of the original seven NASA astronauts, would receive the honor of commanding the Apollo 14 lunar landing.

Liberty Bell 7 spacesuit controversy
When the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame opened in 1990, his family lent it the spacesuit worn by Grissom during Mercury 4 along with other personal artifacts belonging to the astronaut. In 2002, the museum went into bankruptcy and was taken over by a NASA contractor, whereupon the family sought the exhibit's return. All the artifacts were returned to them except the spacesuit, which NASA claimed was government property. NASA insisted Grissom got authorization to use the spacesuit for a show and tell at his son's school in 1965 and never returned it, but some of Grissom's family members claimed the astronaut rescued the spacesuit from a scrap heap. the space suit was part of the Kennedy Space Center Hall of Fame's Heroes and Legends exhibit.

Awards and honors

 * John J. Montgomery Award

To celebrate his spaceflight in 1961, Grissom was made honorary Mayor of Newport News, Virginia, and a new library was dubbed the Virgil I. Grissom Library in the Denbigh section of Newport News, Virginia.

The airport in Bedford, Indiana, where Grissom flew as a teenager was renamed Virgil I. Grissom Municipal Airport in 1965. A three-ton piece of limestone, inscribed with his name, was unveiled at the airport. His fellow astronauts ribbed him about the name, saying that airports were normally named for dead aviators. Grissom replied, "But this time they've named one for a live one." Virgil Grissom Elementary School in Old Bridge, New Jersey, was named for Grissom the year before his death. His death forced the cancellation of a student project to design a flag to represent Grissom and their school, which would have flown on the mission.

Grissom was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Mercury flight and was awarded it a second time for his role in Gemini 3. The Apollo 1 crew was awarded the medal posthumously in a 1969 presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 11 crew.

Grissom's family received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978 from President Carter (White's and Chaffee's families received it in 1997).

Grissom was granted an honorary doctorate from Florida Institute of Technology in 1962, the first-ever awarded by the university. Grissom was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1981, and the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1987. Grissom was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990. His wife, Betty Lavonne Moore, donated his Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the accompanying museum.

Grissom posthumously received AIAA's Haley Astronautics Award for 1968.

Memorials

The dismantled Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station bears two memorial plaques to the crew of Apollo 1. The Kennedy Space Center features a memorial exhibit honoring the Apollo 1 crew in the Apollo/Saturn V Center, which includes artifacts and personal mementos of Grissom, Chaffee, and White. Grissom's name is included on the plaque left on the Moon with the Fallen Astronaut statue in 1971 by the crew of Apollo 15.

The Grissom Memorial, a 44 ft tall limestone monument representing the Redstone rocket and his Mercury space capsule was dedicated in downtown Mitchell, Indiana, in 1981. The Virgil I. Grissom Memorial in Spring Mill State Park, near Grissom's hometown of Mitchell, Indiana, was dedicated in 1971, the tenth anniversary of his Mercury flight. The governor declared it a state holiday for the second year in a row. The Gus Grissom Stakes is a thoroughbred horse race run in Indiana each fall; originally held at Hoosier Park in Anderson, it was moved to Horseshoe Indianapolis in Shelbyville in 2014.

Grissom Island is an artificial island off of Long Beach, California, created in 1966 for drilling oil (along with White, Chaffee and Freeman Islands). Virgil "Gus" Grissom Park opened in 1971 in Fullerton, California. His widow and son were invited to the dedication ceremony and planted the first large tree in the park. Grissom is named with his Apollo 1 crewmates on the Space Mirror Memorial, which was dedicated in 1991. His son, Gary Grissom, said, "When I was younger, I thought NASA would do something. It's a shame it has taken this long".

Navi (Ivan spelled backwards), is a seldom-used nickname for the star Gamma Cassiopeiae. Grissom used this name, plus two others for White and Chaffee, on his Apollo 1 mission planning star charts as a joke, and the succeeding Apollo astronauts kept using the names as a memorial. Grissom crater is one of several located on the far side of the Moon named for Apollo astronauts. The name was created and used unofficially by the Apollo 8 astronauts and was adopted as the official name by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1970. 2161 Grissom is a main belt asteroid that was discovered in 1963 and officially designated in 1981. The name references his launch date of July 21, 1961. Grissom Hill, one of the Apollo 1 Hills on Mars was named by NASA on January 27, 2004, the 37th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire.

Bunker Hill Air Force Base in Peru, Indiana, was renamed on May 12, 1968, to Grissom Air Force Base. During the dedication ceremony, his son said, "Of all the honors he won, none would please him more than this one today." In 1994, it was again renamed to Grissom Air Reserve Base following the USAF's realignment program. The three-letter identifier of the VHF Omni Directional Radio Range (VOR) located at Grissom Air Reserve Base is GUS. In 2000, classes of the United States Air Force Academy began selecting a Class Exemplar who embodies the type of person they strive to be. The class of 2007 selected Grissom. An academic building was renamed Grissom Hall in 1968 at the former Chanute Air Force Base, Rantoul, Illinois, where Minuteman missile maintenance training was conducted. It was one of five buildings renamed for deceased Air Force personnel.

The Virgil I. Grissom Museum, dedicated in 1971 by Governor Edgar Whitcomb, is located just inside the entrance to Spring Mill State Park in Mitchell, Indiana. The Molly Brown was transferred to be displayed in the museum in 1974. His boyhood home in Mitchell, Indiana, is located on Grissom Avenue. The street was renamed in his honor after his Mercury flight.

Schools
Florida Institute of Technology dedicated Grissom Hall, a residence hall, in 1967. State University of New York at Fredonia dubbed their new residence hall Grissom Hall in 1967. Grissom Hall, dedicated in 1968 at Purdue University, was the home of the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics for several decades. It is currently home of the Purdue department of Industrial Engineering.

Virgil I. Grissom Elementary School was built in Houston, Texas, in 1967. Virgil Grissom Elementary School in Princeton, Iowa was one of four schools in Iowa named after astronauts in late 1967. Grissom's family members attended the 1968 dedication of Virgil I. Grissom Middle School in Mishawaka, Indiana. School No. 7 in Rochester, New York, was named for Grissom in April 1968. Devault Elementary School in Gary, Indiana, was renamed Grissom Elementary School in 1969 after Devault was convicted of conspiring to forge purchase orders. Virgil I. Grissom Middle School was dedicated in November 1969 in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Virgil I. Grissom High School was built in 1969 in Huntsville, Alabama. The school board in the Hegewisch community of Chicago, Illinois, voted to name their new school under construction Virgil I. Grissom Elementary School in March 1969. Grissom Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was founded in 1969 and dedicated by Betty Grissom in 1970. Grissom Memorial Elementary School was dedicated in 1973 in Muncie, Indiana. Virgil I. Grissom Middle School was founded in Tinley Park, Illinois, in 1975.

Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom Elementary School was operated by the Department of Defense Dependents Schools at the former Clark Air Base, Philippines. Originally named the Wurtsmith Hill School, it was renamed on November 14, 1968. It housed 3rd and 4th grade students. The school was severely damaged by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991.
 * Virgil I. Grissom Junior High School 226, South Ozone Park, Queens, New York City

Film and television
Grissom has been noted and remembered in many film and television productions. Before he became widely known as an astronaut, the film Air Cadet (1951) starring Richard Long and Rock Hudson briefly featured Grissom early in the movie as a U.S. Air Force candidate for flight school at Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas. Grissom was depicted by Fred Ward in the film The Right Stuff (1983) and (very briefly) in the film Apollo 13 (1995) by Steve Bernie. He was portrayed in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998) by Mark Rolston. Actor Kevin McCorkle played Grissom in the third-season finale of the NBC television show American Dreams. Bryan Cranston played Grissom as a variety-show guest in the film That Thing You Do! Actor Joel Johnstone portrays Gus Grissom in the 2015 ABC TV series The Astronaut Wives Club. In 2016 Gus Grissom was included in the narrative of the movie Hidden Figures. In 2018, he was portrayed by Shea Whigham in First Man. In 2020's Disney+ miniseries The Right Stuff, Grissom is portrayed by Michael Trotter.

In the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the Federation starship USS Grissom is named for Grissom. Another USS Grissom was featured in a 1990 episode of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was mentioned in a 1999 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The character Gil Grissom in the CBS television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the character Virgil Tracy in the British television series Thunderbirds are also named after the astronaut. NASA footage, including Grissom's Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, was released in high definition on the Discovery Channel in June 2008 in the television series When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions.

When Grissom died, he was in the process of writing a book about Gemini.

title: Gus Grissom


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User:Calypso

I am a mathematician by training and a translator and language teacher by profession, but I have an interest in quite a lot of things which have little to do with either my educational background or my current job, and primatology is one of them. I have started an article about chimpanzees and plan to do some work on other primates and related topics. As I am from Spain, I happen to know a bit more about this country than most other Wikipedians, that's why I've done some minor work on articles related to Spain or the Spanish language and plan to continue doing so in the future.

As a newcomer, I'm not very familiar with the process of wiki-editing. I apologize for any mistakes. Help and advice will be appreciated.

title: User:Calypso


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Ed White (astronaut)

Edward Higgins White II (November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967) was an American aeronautical engineer, United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He was a member of the crews of Gemini 4 and Apollo 1.

After graduating from West Point in 1952 with a Bachelor of Science degree, White was sent to flight training, and assigned to the 22nd Fighter Day Squadron at Bitburg Air Base, West Germany, where he flew the F-86 Sabre and F-100 Super Sabre fighters. In 1958, he enrolled in the University of Michigan to study aeronautical engineering, receiving his Master of Science degree in 1959. White then received test pilot training at Edwards Air Force Base, California, before being assigned as a test pilot for the Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

White was selected as one of the second group of astronauts, the so-called "Next Nine", who were chosen to take part in the Gemini and Apollo missions. He was assigned as pilot of Gemini 4 alongside command pilot James McDivitt. On June 3, 1965, White became the first American to walk in space. He was then assigned as senior pilot of the first crewed Apollo mission, Apollo 1. White died on January 27, 1967, alongside astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Roger B. Chaffee in a fire during pre-launch testing for Apollo 1 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his flight in Gemini 4 and was then awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor posthumously.

Early life
Edward Higgins White II was born on November 14, 1930, in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Edward Higgins White Sr. (1901–1978), a West Point graduate (Class of 1924) who later rose to become a major general in the United States Air Force (USAF), and Mary Rosina White (Haller; 1900–1983). He had a younger brother, James Blair White (1942–1969), and an older sister, Jeanne. His interest in aviation was sparked at the age of twelve when his father took him for a ride in a North American T-6 Texan trainer. He became a member of the Boy Scouts of America, where he earned the rank of Second Class Scout.

Due to the nature of his father's job, White's family moved often to different military bases across the country throughout his childhood. The White family moved from San Antonio, Texas to Dayton, Ohio, where he attended Oakwood Junior High School, and to Washington, D.C., where he attended Western High School. After graduating in 1948, he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and attend West Point, but his family's peripatetic life presented a problem: an appointment to West Point from a United States Congressman was required, and the family had not been continuously resident in any one place for very long. White went down to the Capitol and knocked on Congressmen's doors seeking an appointment, armed with a glowing reference from his high school principal. He eventually secured one from Congressman Ross Rizley from Oklahoma.

White entered West Point on July 15, 1948. He acquired the nickname "Red" from the color of his hair. While at West Point, White competed for a spot on the 1952 U.S. Olympic team in the 400 meter hurdles race, but missed qualification in the heat by 0.4 seconds. White was also a half-back on the West Point soccer team. His hobbies included squash, handball, swimming, golf, and photography. His classmates included Michael Collins, who later became an astronaut as well.

Military service
Upon graduation with a Bachelor of Science degree from West Point, ranked 128th out of 523 in the Class of 1952, White was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. Under a 1949 agreement, up to 25percent of the graduating classes of West Point and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis could volunteer for the Air Force. Between 1950, when the agreement became effective, and 1959, when the first class graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, about 3,200 West Point cadets and Annapolis midshipmen chose to do so. White received his initial pilot training at Bartow Air Base, Florida, and his jet training at James Connally Air Force Base, Texas. After receiving his pilot wings in 1953, White was assigned to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, for Fighter Gunnery School. In February 1953, White married Patricia Eileen Finegan (1934–1983), whom he had met at a West Point football game. They had two children, Edward Higgins White III (born in 1953) and Bonnie Lynn White (born in 1956).

White was assigned to the 22nd Fighter Squadron at Bitburg Air Base in West Germany, where he spent three and a half years flying North American F-86 Sabre and North American F-100 Super Sabre fighters. Among his colleagues were Buzz Aldrin, who graduated a year ahead of him at West Point, and James Salter. In 1957, White read an article about the astronauts of the future, and decided to become one. He believed that getting an advanced degree would improve his chances of being selected. Aldrin later recalled that White convinced him to follow this path as well. In September 1958, White enrolled in the University of Michigan under Air Force sponsorship to study aeronautical engineering. His classmates included James McDivitt, Jim Irwin and Ted Freeman. White was awarded his Master of Science degree in 1959.

After it became clear that being a test pilot would also improve his chances of being selected to become an astronaut, White attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, with class 59-C, which graduated in July 1959. McDivitt was one of his classmates. White was assigned to the Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. There, he did flight tests for weapons development, and helped make recommendations for aircraft design on aircraft such as the Fairchild C-123 Provider, Convair C-131 Samaritan, Boeing C-135 Stratolifter, the North American F-100 Super Sabre, Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star. As a weightlessness- and extended-flight-training captain, he piloted the planes that were used to train astronauts in weightlessness. His passengers included John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, and Ham, the first hominid in space. During his career, White would log more than 3,000 flight hours with the Air Force, including about 2,200 hours in jets.

Gemini program
White was one of eleven pilots whose names the Air Force submitted to NASA in 1962 as potential candidates for the second group of astronauts. He was then selected as one of 32 finalists who would undergo medical and psychological examinations at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. White arrived at the Aerospace Medical Center at Brooks AFB on July 30, 1962. He ran around the perimeter of Brooks every day during the testing to keep in shape.

White was one of nine men chosen by NASA as part of Astronaut Group 2 in September 1962. Their selection was announced at a press conference in Cullen Auditorium at the University of Houston on September 17, 1962. Like their predecessors, the Mercury Seven, each of the new astronauts was assigned an area of specialization within the crewed space program: in White's case, flight control systems.

Gemini 4
White was selected to be the pilot of Gemini 4, with McDivitt as his command pilot. The Chief of the Astronaut Office, Mercury Seven astronaut Deke Slayton, paired them because they knew each other well, having attended the University of Michigan and test pilot school together. The mission objectives were ill-defined at first, but consideration was given to performing extravehicular activity (EVA), space rendezvous and orbital station-keeping.

Knowing that EVA (or spacewalk) was a possibility, McDivitt pressed for it to be included in the mission. As a result, NASA management agreed to ensure that the Gemini space suit for the mission was capable of being used for EVA. Kenneth S. Kleinknecht told the July 1964 press conference that announced the mission that one of the crew might open the hatch and stick his head outside, but this attracted little attention. On March 18, 1965, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to perform an EVA, on the Voskhod 2 mission, but not until May 25 was EVA approved for Gemini 4 by NASA administrator James E. Webb.

White was a devout Methodist. On the Gemini 4 mission he carried three pieces of religious jewelry to take with him on his EVA: a gold cross, a St. Christopher Medal and a Star of David. White commented: "I felt while I couldn't take one for every religion in the country, I could take the items most familiar to me."

On June 3, 1965, the Gemini 4 crew was launched into space to begin its four-day mission. After separation from the Titan II upper stage, McDivitt attempted to rendezvous with the booster. However, this was unsuccessful since the astronauts were not adequately trained to rendezvous in orbit. The objective had to be abandoned since the allocated propellant had been used up, and the maneuvers had pushed the spacecraft's orbit too far away from Earth. The mission also included 11 different scientific experiments, including the use of a sextant for celestial navigation.

After the failed rendezvous attempt, White appeared tired and hot, so the EVA was postponed from the second revolution to the third revolution. At 19:46 UTC, White became the first American to make an EVA. During his spacewalk, White used an oxygen-propelled gun called the Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit to propel himself. White found the experience so exhilarating that he was reluctant to terminate the EVA at the allotted time, and had to be ordered back into the spacecraft. While White was outside, a spare thermal glove floated away through the open hatch of the spacecraft, becoming an early piece of space debris in low Earth orbit, until it burned up upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. There was a mechanical problem with the hatch mechanism, which made it difficult to open and to relatch. McDivitt was able to get the door locked by using his glove to push on the gears that controlled the mechanism. This added to the time constraint of the spacewalk and could have threatened the lives of both men if McDivitt had been unable to get the hatch latched, as they could not re-enter the atmosphere with an unsealed hatch. "I'm coming back in... and it's the saddest moment of my life."

- Astronaut Edward H. White while reentering the spacecraft after his EVA

When they returned to Earth, the two astronauts found that they were now celebrities. President Lyndon B. Johnson came to Houston to congratulate them, and he promoted them to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Later that week they traveled to the White House where Johnson presented them the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. They were given a ticker tape parade in Chicago, and went to the 1965 Paris Air Show, where they met cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

White's next assignment after Gemini 4 was as the backup for Gemini 7 command pilot Frank Borman, with Michael Collins assigned as his pilot. He was also named the astronaut specialist for the flight control systems of the Apollo command module. Under the usual procedure of crew rotation in the Gemini program, White would have been in line for a second flight as the command pilot of Gemini 10 in July 1966, which would have made him the first of his group to fly twice. Instead, he was selected for the Apollo 1 spaceflight.

Apollo program
In March 1966, White was selected as senior pilot (second seat) for the first crewed Apollo flight, designated AS-204. His fellow astronauts would be Command Pilot Virgil "Gus" Grissom, who had flown in space on the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission in 1961 and as commander of the Gemini 3 in 1965, and Pilot Roger Chaffee, who had yet to fly into space. The mission, which the men named Apollo 1 in June, was originally planned for late 1966 to coincide with the last Gemini mission, but the impracticality of making the Gemini capsule and systems compatible with Apollo and delays in the spacecraft development pushed the launch into 1967.

The launch of Apollo 1 was planned for February 21, 1967. The crew entered the spacecraft at 13:00 on January 27, mounted atop its Saturn IB booster on Launch Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy, for a "plugs-out" test of the spacecraft. The test was to demonstrate all of the space vehicle systems and procedures, which included an abbreviated countdown and flight simulation. It was not classified as hazardous since the rocket would not be fueled during the test. The test's progress was delayed by problems with a cabin odor and poor communications between the ground stations and the crew. At 18:31, a fire broke out in the pure oxygen-filled cabin, killing all three crewmen.

Emergency roles had called for White to actuate the inner hatch release handle; then, Grissom would assist him in the removal of the cover, while Chaffee would maintain communications. White had apparently tried to do his part: his body was found in his center seat, with his arms reaching over his head toward the hatch. Removing the cover to open the hatch was impossible because the plug door design required venting normally slightly greater-than-atmospheric pressure and pulling the cover into the cabin. Grissom was unable to reach the cabin vent control to his left, where the fire's source was located. The intense heat raised the cabin pressure even more, to 29 psi, at which point the cabin walls ruptured. The astronauts were killed by asphyxiation, smoke inhalation, and thermal burns.

Aftermath
The fire's ignition source was determined to be a spark that jumped from a wire on the far left of the spacecraft, under Grissom's seat. Their deaths were attributed to a wide range of lethal hazards in the early Apollo Command Module design: workmanship and conditions of the test, including the highly pressurized 100% oxygen pre-launch atmosphere, many wiring and plumbing flaws, flammable materials used in the cockpit and the astronauts' flight suits, and a hatch which could not be quickly opened in an emergency. After the incident, these problems were fixed, and the Apollo program carried on successfully to reach its objective of landing men on the Moon.

White was buried with full military honors at West Point Cemetery while Grissom and Chaffee are both buried in Arlington National Cemetery. NASA officials attempted to pressure Patricia White, his widow, into allowing her husband also to be buried at Arlington, against what she knew to be his wishes; their efforts were foiled by astronaut Frank Borman. Patricia received $100,000 from the life insurance portion of the contract the astronauts signed to give two publishing firms exclusive rights to the stories and photographs of the astronauts and their families. She also received $16,250 annually for the life of the contract. Patricia later remarried and continued to reside in Houston. On September 6, 1983, she took her own life after surgery earlier in the year to remove a tumor.

White's younger brother James resolved to follow in his older brother's footsteps. He graduated from the Air Force Academy and became a fighter pilot. He set his sights on becoming a test pilot and then an astronaut. He thought that air combat experience would facilitate this, so he volunteered for service in the Vietnam War. While flying a combat mission on November 24, 1969, with 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron, he was killed when his aircraft crashed. Nearly half a century later his remains were identified, and they were buried adjacent to White's in West Point Cemetery on June 19, 2018.

Organizations
White was a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots; associate member of Institute of Aerospace Sciences; Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honorary); and Sigma Delta Psi (Athletic Honorary).

Awards and honors

 * Senior Astronaut Wings
 * Air Force Commendation Medal
 * Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, 1965
 * Medalha Bandeirantes va Cosmonautica
 * Firefly Club Award
 * Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation, 1965
 * Five Outstanding Young Texans, 1965
 * National Aviation Club's Achievement Award, 1966

White and McDivitt were presented honorary doctorate degrees in astronautical science by the University of Michigan after their Gemini 4 flight. The duo were also awarded the Arnold Air Society's John F. Kennedy Trophy. White received the 1965 General Thomas D. White National Defense Award for his spacewalk. It is a trophy given by the National Geographic Society to outstanding air force personnel. He was inducted into the Aerospace Primus Club (the "most exclusive club on Earth") for his EVA. He was awarded the AIAA Haley Astronautics Award for 1967. The Apollo 1 crew was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal posthumously in a 1969 presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 11 crew. President Clinton presented the White and Chaffee families with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1997 (Grissom's family received the medal in 1978).

White, along with nine other Gemini astronauts, was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1982. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1993 and the National Aviation Hall of Fame on July 18, 2009.

Schools
Many schools have been named in honor of White:
 * Edward White Elementary Career Academy in Chicago
 * Edward H. White Middle School in White's hometown of San Antonio, Texas
 * Edward H. White II Elementary School in El Lago, Texas
 * Edward White Elementary School in Eldridge, Iowa
 * Ed White Memorial High School in League City, Texas
 * Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida
 * Edward H. White Elementary School in Houston, Texas.
 * Ed White Middle School in Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville is home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and has strong community ties to the space program. At the same time, the Huntsville City Schools named Roger B. Chaffee Elementary School and Virgil I. Grissom High School for White's fallen Apollo 1 crewmates.
 * Edward H. White Memorial Youth Center, Seabrook, Texas

Other sites

 * Edward White Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida (closed in 2014).
 * Edward H. White II Park in Fullerton, California. Fullerton has also named parks in honor of Chaffee and Grissom.
 * Island White, an artificial island in Long Beach Harbor off Southern California.
 * Edward H. White Hall was a dormitory at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas.
 * McDivitt-White Plaza is located outside West Hall at the University of Michigan. West Hall formerly housed the College of Engineering and counts James McDivitt and Ed White among its alumni (McDivitt earned his B.S. and White earned his M.S. at the University of Michigan).
 * The dismantled Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral bears two memorial plaques. One reads, "They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind's final frontier. Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived." and the other "In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice so others could reach for the stars. Ad astra per aspera, (a rough road leads to the stars). God speed to the crew of Apollo 1."
 * Edward H. White II American Legion Post 521; Pasadena, Texas.
 * Edward White Park in Garland, Texas.
 * Edward White Way in Oakland, California, a service road which runs along the Southern edge of Oakland International Airport. The airport has multiple roads named after NASA astronauts.

In space

 * The star Iota Ursae Majoris was nicknamed "Dnoces" ("Second", as in "Edward Higgins White the Second", spelled backwards).
 * White Hill, 11.2 km (7.0 mi) northwest of Columbia Memorial Station on Mars, is a part of the Apollo 1 Hills.
 * A photograph of White performing his Gemini 4 space walk is included as one of several images on the Voyager Golden Record.

Philatelic

 * Eight months after his death, in September 1967, a postage stamp was issued by the United States Post Office, commemorating White's spacewalk. It was the first time in USPO history that the design was actually spread over two stamps (one which featured White, the other his Gemini capsule, the two connected by a tether), which was considered befitting the "twins" aspect of the Gemini mission.

Omega Speedmaster "Ed White"
The Omega Speedmaster wristwatch reference 105.003 has come to be known as the "Ed White" as this reference was worn by White during his spacewalk. The Speedmaster remains the only watch qualified by NASA for EVA use.

In media
White was played by Steven Ruge in the 1995 film Apollo 13, by Chris Isaak in the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, and by Matt Lanter in the 2015 ABC TV series The Astronaut Wives Club. In 2018, he was portrayed by Jason Clarke in First Man.

title: Ed White (astronaut)


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Roger B. Chaffee

Roger Bruce Chaffee (February 15, 1935 – January 27, 1967) was an American naval officer, aviator and aeronautical engineer who was a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program.

Chaffee was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he became an Eagle Scout. He graduated from Central High School in 1953, and accepted a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship. He began his college education at Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was involved in the fraternity Phi Kappa Sigma. He transferred to Purdue University in 1954, continuing his involvement in Phi Kappa Sigma serving as chapter president in 1956 and obtaining his private pilot's license.

After graduating from Purdue in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering, Chaffee completed his Navy training and was commissioned as an ensign. He began pilot training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, flying aircraft such as the T-34, T-28, and A3D. He became quality and safety control officer for Heavy Photographic Squadron 62 (VAP-62). His time in this unit included taking crucial photos of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, earning him the Air Medal. He was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1966.

Along with thirteen other pilots, Chaffee was selected to be an astronaut as part of NASA Astronaut Group 3 in 1963. He served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for the Gemini 3 and Gemini 4 missions and received his first spaceflight assignment in 1966 as the third-ranking pilot on Apollo 1. In 1967, he died in a fire along with fellow astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Ed White during a pre-launch test for the mission at what was then the Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34, Florida. He was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and a second Air Medal.

Early life
Roger Bruce Chaffee was born on February 15, 1935, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the second child of Donald Lynn Chaffee (1910–1998) and Blanche May (Mike) Chaffee (1912–1996). He had an older sister, Donna, born two years earlier. In January 1935, in their hometown of Greenville, Michigan, his father was diagnosed with scarlet fever, so his mother moved in with her parents in Grand Rapids, where Roger was born. The family spent the next seven years in Greenville before moving to Grand Rapids, where his father took a job as the chief Army Ordnance inspector at the Doehler-Jarvis plant. Chaffee's interest in aerospace was sparked at a young age when his father, a former barnstorming pilot, took him on his first flight at the age of seven. Chaffee was thrilled by the flight and soon after started building model airplanes with his father.

Boy Scouts
Chaffee excelled as a Boy Scout, earning his first merit badge at the age of thirteen. He earned ten more badges that year. Many of these awards were typically earned by the older scouts. He continued his success by earning four more badges at the age of fourteen. He earned four badges for each of the next two years, almost all the badges available at the time. After becoming an Eagle Scout, he managed to earn another ten merit badges, for which he was awarded the bronze and gold palms. Between his camping trips with his family and his involvement with the Boy Scouts, Chaffee developed a passion for the outdoors.

Education
Chaffee attended the Dickinson School in Grand Rapids, and later graduated from Central High School in the top 20% of his class in 1953. Turning down a possible appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, he accepted a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship, and in September 1953 enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He performed well, making the Dean's List and finishing with a B+ average. While enrolled, he joined Phi Kappa Sigma.

Chaffee was passionate about flying, and had a strong aptitude for science and engineering. To apply those talents, he transferred to Purdue University in the autumn of 1954 to attend the school's well-known aeronautical engineering program. Before arriving in West Lafayette, he reported for an 8-week tour on USS Wisconsin (BB-64) as a part of the NROTC program. To qualify, he had to finish training and pass further tests. He initially failed the eye exam, but the physician permitted him to retake it the next morning, and he passed. He was then allowed to tour on Wisconsin to England, Scotland, France, and Cuba. Upon his return to American soil, he worked as a gear cutter.

After starting classes at Purdue, Chaffee sought out a job to complement his coursework and involvement in the Phi Kappa Sigma social fraternity. His first job during his sophomore year was working as a server at one of the women's residences, but he disliked the job and sought new employment. He was hired as a draftsman at a small business near Purdue. As a junior, he was hired as a teaching assistant in the Mathematics Department to teach classes to freshman students. He was elected to the Tau Beta Pi national engineering honor society which is equivalent to Phi Beta Kappa in the non-engineering disciplines, and Sigma Gamma Tau engineering honor societies. In 1955, Chaffee took four flying lessons, but he did not have enough money to get his private pilot's license. Two years later, the NROTC sponsored flight training for him to become a naval aviator. He soloed on March 29, 1957, and obtained his private pilot's license on May 24, 1957. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree, with distinction, in aeronautical engineering at Purdue in 1957.

Family
Chaffee met his future wife Martha Louise Horn on a double-blind date in September 1955. They started dating, and he proposed to her on October 12, 1956. They married in Oklahoma City, Martha's hometown, on August 24, 1957. Martha was a homemaker. The couple had two children, Sheryl Lyn (born in 1958) and Stephen (born in 1961).

Navy service
After graduation, Chaffee completed his Navy training on August 22, 1957, and received commission as an ensign. Following his honeymoon, he was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain (CV-39) for a six-week assignment in Norfolk with the Naval Air Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. By the time Chaffee arrived at the base, the ship had already left port. He temporarily worked at the base until October 1957, when he attended flight school at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. He started his training by flying the T-28 and the T-34. He was posted to Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas, from August 1958 to February 1959 as a part of Advanced Training Unit 212. In Kingsville, he trained on the F9F Cougar jet fighter. His daughter Sheryl was born the day before he left for his first aircraft carrier training. He was awarded his naval aviator wings in early 1959.

Chaffee was transferred to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida, to continue his training. His first project was not flying, but repairing an A3D twin-engine jet photo reconnaissance plane. This plane was typically flown by pilots with the rank of lieutenant commander or above, but Chaffee became so familiar with the plane from repairing it he became one of the youngest pilots ever to fly it. He joined Attack Squadron 44 (VA-44) in September 1959, and from October 1959 to March 1960 he trained with Heavy Attack Squadron 3 (VAH-3).

Chaffee received a variety of assignments and participated in multiple training duties over the next several years, spending most of his time in photo reconnaissance squadrons. He was stationed at NAS Jacksonville as safety officer and quality control officer for Heavy Photographic Squadron 62 (VAP-62) flying the A3D. He wrote a quality control manual for the squadron, although some of his peers saw this as too demanding. By coincidence, he was assigned to a mission where he flew over Cape Canaveral, during which aerial photographs of future launch sites were taken.

Between April 4, 1960, and October 25, 1962, including during the critical time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Chaffee flew 82 missions over Cuba, sometimes up to three per day, and achieved over 100 flight hours each month. Some of these trips included shuttling three men per plane back and forth to Guantanamo Bay, including the pilot, co-pilot, and the photographer. Some biographies credit him with flying the U-2 plane to spy on Cuba, but this is erroneous since he was a Navy pilot and the U-2 was an Air Force plane.

After this, Chaffee undertook aircraft carrier flight training, including time spent on USS Saratoga (CV-60) performing both day and night flights. He said of day flying, "Setting that big bird down on the flight deck was like landing on a postage stamp"; and of night flying, "Getting catapulted off that flight deck at night is like getting shot into a bottle of ink!" While working in Jacksonville, he concurrently worked on a master's degree. He was on a cruise to Africa when his son Stephen was born in Oklahoma City.

During Chaffee's Navy service he logged more than 2,300 hours flying time, including more than 2,000 hours in jet aircraft. On February 1, 1966, he was promoted to lieutenant commander.

Selection
In August 1962, Chaffee confided in his family that he had submitted an application for the NASA astronaut training program, and informed his superiors of his desire to train as a test pilot for astronaut status. In mid-1962, he was accepted in the initial pool of 1,800 applicants for the third group of NASA astronauts. After his naval tour was over, and he had racked up over 1,800 hours of flying time, the Navy offered him the opportunity to continue work on his master's degree. In January 1963, he entered the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, of Air University, to work on his Master of Science degree in reliability engineering.

While at AFIT, Chaffee continued participating in astronaut candidate testing as the pool of candidates dropped to 271 in mid-1963. It was noted during testing that he had a very small lung capacity but he used it better than most people with greater capacity. On his return from a hunting trip to Fairborn, Ohio, on October 14, 1963, he found a message from NASA in Houston, Texas. He called them back, and discovered he had been chosen as an astronaut. On October 18, 1963, it was officially announced that he was one of fourteen chosen for NASA's third group of astronauts. He said, "I was very pleased with the appointment. I've always wanted to fly and perform adventurous flying tasks all my life. Ever since the first seven Mercury astronauts were named, I've been keeping my studies up."

Training
Phase one of training for the third group of astronauts began in 1964 in lecture halls. Lectures in several fields were supplemented with trips to locations with geological significance so the astronauts gained hands-on experience. As well as piloting the spacecraft, the astronauts were to perform scientific experiments and measurements on the Moon. The astronauts traveled to the Grand Canyon to learn about geography and to Alaska, Iceland, and Hawaii to learn about rock formations and lava flows.

The second phase was contingency training, which focused on astronauts learning the skills required to survive if the landing did not occur where planned. The group started their training by being dropped off in the middle of the jungle in Panama. They performed the survival training in pairs, carrying only their parachutes and survival kits. Chaffee, with help from his Boy Scout training, foraged for enough food to survive during the three-day training mission. Following the jungle training, the astronauts traveled to an entirely different environment: the desert of Reno, Nevada. For clothing, the astronauts had only long underwear, shoes, and robes they manufactured from their parachutes. Lizards and snakes were the main source of food, and the astronauts used their parachutes as makeshift tents for shelter for the two days of desert training.

The third and final phase was operational training for the astronauts. This focused on giving them hands-on experience using the instruments and equipment required during their spaceflight. They received training in the effects of microgravity and rapid acceleration. The astronauts spent time in simulators, aboard cargo planes that simulated weightlessness, underwater to practice extravehicular activities (EVAs), and on visits to manufacturing plants to check on the progress of the hardware.

Project Gemini
Every astronaut was required to have a specialty, and Chaffee's specialty was communications. He focused on the Deep Space Instrumentation Facility (DSIF), which the astronauts needed for navigation in space.

At the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Chaffee served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) in March 1965 for Gemini 3. Later that year, he was CAPCOM, along with Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Eugene Cernan, for the Gemini 4 mission, in which Ed White performed the first spacewalk by an American. As CAPCOM, Chaffee relayed information between the crew members and the Director of Flight Operations, Chris Kraft. He never got a seat on a Gemini mission, but was assigned to work on flight control, communications, instrumentation, and attitude and translation control systems in the Apollo program. During this time, along with Grissom, he also flew chase planes at an altitude of between 30,000 and 50,000 ft to take motion pictures of the launch of an uncrewed Saturn 1B rocket.

Apollo program
Chaffee received his first spaceflight assignment in January 1966, when he was selected for the first crewed Apollo-Saturn flight, AS-204. At the time, he was the youngest American astronaut to be selected for a mission. Joining Command Pilot Grissom and Senior Pilot White, he replaced the injured Donn F. Eisele in the third-ranked pilot position. Eisele required surgery for a dislocated shoulder, which he sustained aboard the KC-135 weightlessness training aircraft. He was reassigned to a second Apollo crew, commanded by Wally Schirra.

The crew announcement was made public on March 21, 1966. The two-week flight of Apollo1 was to test the spacecraft systems and the control and ground tracking facilities. While Chaffee had monitored the manufacture of the Gemini spacecraft, he had not witnessed the building of the Apollo spacecraft. Three days after being selected for the Apollo1 crew, he flew to the North American Aviation Plant in Downey, California, to see it.

Later in April, the crew traveled to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to study stars that were programmed into their flight computer. In October, the six crewmembers planned to test the spacecraft in sea level and altitude conditions. The failure of an oxygen regulator prevented them from performing the vacuum test, but they managed to complete the sea level test. They also performed egress tests, where capsule simulators were dropped in the Gulf of Mexico under various conditions and the crew had to exit the spacecraft. The crew was able to spend time with their families at Christmas. Chaffee entered a local Christmas decoration contest and he received first prize. Four Purdue astronauts were requested to attend the Rose Bowl as guests of honor; Grissom, Gene Cernan, Neil Armstrong, and Chaffee attended the game on January 2, 1967. Progress on pre-mission activities was nearing completion; NASA announced on Monday, January 23, that February 21 was the target launch date. The primary and backup crews moved back to the Cape for the last few weeks of training. They had their own living quarters, a private waiter and chef, and gymnasium to remain fit.

On Friday, January 27, Grissom, White, and Chaffee were participating in a "plugs-out" countdown demonstration test at Cape Kennedy in preparation for the planned February 21 launch. Chaffee was sitting at the right side of the cabin. His main role was to maintain communications with the blockhouse. A momentary power surge was detected at 23:30:55 GMT (6:30 pm EST), which was believed to accompany an electrical short in equipment located on the lower left side of the cabin, the presumed ignition source for the fire. At 23:31:04 GMT, a voice was heard declaring, "[We]'ve got a fire in the cockpit." Most investigative listeners believe that voice was Chaffee's.

Assigned emergency roles called for Grissom, in the left-hand seat, to open the cabin pressure vent valve, after which White in the center seat was to open the plug door hatch, while Chaffee in the right-hand seat was to maintain communications. Grissom was prevented from opening the valve by the intensity of the fire, which started in that region and spread from left to right. Despite this, White removed his restraints and apparently tried in vain to open the hatch, which was held closed by the cabin pressure. The increasing pressure finally burst the inner cabin wall on the right-hand side at 23:31:19 GMT. After approximately thirty seconds of being fed by a cabin atmosphere of pure oxygen at pressures of 16.7 to 29 psi, and now fed by nitrogen-buffered ambient air, the primary fire decreased in intensity and started producing large amounts of smoke, which killed the astronauts. Chaffee lost consciousness because of a lack of oxygen which sent him into cardiac arrest. He died from asphyxia due to the toxic gases from the fire, with burns contributing to his death.

Failed oxygen and ethylene glycol pipes near the fire's origin point continued burning an intense secondary fire which melted through the cabin floor. By the time firefighters were able to open the hatch, the fire had extinguished itself. The back of Chaffee's couch was found in the horizontal position, with the lower portion angled towards the floor. His helmet was closed and locked, his restraints were undone, and the hoses and electrical connections to the suit remained connected. As he was farthest from the origin of the fire, he suffered the least burn and suit damage.

Aftermath

Shortly after the AS-204 fire in 1967, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Spaceflight George Mueller announced the mission would be officially designated as Apollo 1. The capsule underwent a significant redesign as a result of the disaster. The atmosphere in the cabin was changed from 100% oxygen to a 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen environment at launch. The astronauts' spacesuits, originally made of nylon, were changed to beta cloth, a non-flammable, highly melt-resistant fabric woven from fiberglass and coated with Teflon. There were other changes, including replacing flammable cabin materials with self-extinguishing ones, and covering plumbing and wiring with protective insulation.

Chaffee and Grissom were buried in Arlington National Cemetery, while White was buried at West Point Cemetery. Chaffee's widow received $100,000 from the life insurance portion of the contract the astronauts signed with two publishing firms so they would have exclusive rights to stories and photographs of the astronauts and their families. She also received $16,250 per year for the life of the contract.

Memorials
Chaffee is memorialized in many ways, from the Chaffee Crater on the far side of the Moon, to the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium in his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. When the Kent County International Airport relocated farther out in suburban Grand Rapids in 1963, the main runway of the original airport was repurposed into a major roadway and named Roger B. Chaffee Boulevard. Another memorial is a hill on Mars, Chaffee Hill, 14.3 km south-southwest of Columbia Memorial Station, part of the Apollo 1 Hills. Regor (Roger spelled backwards), is a seldom-used nickname for the star Gamma Velorum. Grissom used this name, plus two others for White and himself, on his Apollo1 mission planning star charts as a joke, and the succeeding Apollo astronauts kept using the names as a memorial. A terrestrial memorial is Chaffee Island, an artificial island off Long Beach, California, created in 1966 for drilling oil (along with White, Grissom and Freeman Islands). A park in Fullerton, California, was named after Chaffee; parks were also named after his fellow Apollo1 comrades. Chaffee is named with his Apollo1 crewmates on the Space Mirror Memorial, which was dedicated in 1991. Chaffee's name is included on the plaque left on the Moon with the Fallen Astronaut statue in 1971 by the crew of Apollo 15.

The dismantled Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral bears two memorial plaques:

"They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind's final frontier. Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived."

"In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice so others could reach for the stars. Ad astra per aspera (a rough road leads to the stars). God speed to the crew of Apollo 1."

The Roger B. Chaffee scholarship named for him has been awarded annually since 1967 to exceptional students in the Kent Intermediate School District for high school seniors who will be pursuing a career in math and science. Chaffee Hall, an engineering building, was dedicated to him at his alma mater, Purdue University, in 1968. Grissom High School, Ed White Middle School and Chaffee Elementary School in Huntsville, Alabama, were named for the Apollo1 astronauts.

Roger That! is an annual event sponsored by the Grand Rapids Public Museum and Grand Valley State University that celebrates space exploration and the life of Chaffee, who was a Grand Rapids native.

Awards and honors
Chaffee was awarded the Navy Air Medal for his involvement in Heavy Photographic Squadron 62. He completed 82 classified missions "of paramount military importance to the security of the United States". The Apollo1 crew was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal posthumously in a 1969 presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 11 crew. He was posthumously awarded a second Air Medal. He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1983 and into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, on October 4, 1997. Chaffee and White were awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor posthumously in 1997 (Grissom received the medal in 1978). He was later awarded the NASA Ambassador of Exploration Award for involvement in the U.S. space program in 2007.

On the television show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine a fictional 24th century spacecraft was named after him, designed by Doug Drexler. They named it after Chaffee as a reminder about the dangers of space exploration. Star Trek and NASA have a long history of collaborations going back to the late 1960s when the television show made its debut.

In 2018 a life-size bronze statue of Chaffee was unveiled outside the Grand Rapids Children's Museum in Chaffee's hometown. His wife, other family members, and astronaut Jack Lousma (a Grand Rapids native) were present for the event.

title: Roger B. Chaffee


text:
User:Espen

no:Bruker:Espensv:Användare:EspenI teach at BI Norwegian Business School and tinker with a number of other things, see http://www.espen.com, email self at espen.com. Got started here in January 2002 with Fridtjof Nansen, then some others - this is addictive!

Entries I have added or worked on: Fridtjof Nansen, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Liv Ullmann, Nansen passports, UNCTAD, Wendell Willkie, George Marshall, Milan Kundera, Jan Kjærstad, John Steinbeck, Martin Heidegger, Astrid Lindgren, Primo Levi, Easter Egg, Andre Malraux, Karel Capek, de facto, Ivar Aasen, palindrome, Raoul Wallenberg, various Lord of the Rings characters, Henrik Wergeland, Tordenskjold, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, J. S. Welhaven, Ludvig Holberg, more to come.

I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Some writings that are relevant in a wiki context: A paper on using blogs and wikis in a corporate setting, that describes some aspects of the Wikipedia a Norwegian-language article about Wikipedia for a computer magazine a 2008 article in Aftenposten with Norwegian Wikipedian Ulf Larsen about the competition between Wikipedia and paper-based encyclopædia, and a 2010 comment in Morgenbladet on the same topic. Various blog entries on wiki technology or the Wikipedia: 1, 2, 3, 4

I have an "Are You A Wikipediholic" score of 38, which isn't too bad, I suppose.

/sandbox

I use Wikipedia and a Wikipedia assignment in many of my courses - I see the practice of responsible 'Pedianism as a great tool to understand topics such as technology strategy, IT management and collaborative work practices. Plus, at least the Norwegian version of Wikipedia urgently needs updates, and this is one way of doing it....

Current classes:
 * 2012: Participants in GRA6821 Technology Strategy should go to this page for their Wikipedia assignment.

Prior classes:
 * Participants in the Norwegian School of Management EMBA course in IT management can click here to access instructions for the running Wikipedia assignment.
 * 2011: Participants in GRA6834 Business Development and Innovation Management and GRA6821 Technology Strategy should go to this page for their Wikipedia assignment.
 * 2010, 2009, 2008: GRA6825 Technology Strategy and Strategic Technology should go to this page for their Wikipedia assignment.
 * 2007: GRA6821 Technology Strategy and Strategic Technology can go here for their Wikipedia assignment.
 * 2006: GRA6825 Technology Strategy and Strategic Technology used this page for one assignment.
 * 2004-5: Elektronisk Strategisk Forretningsutvikling - Finnmark på Nett hadde sin oppgave her.
 * 2004-5: GRA6821 Technology Strategy and Strategic Technology did their thing here.
 * 2003-4: Electronic Strategic Business Development worked here.

title: User:Espen


text:
AS-204

AS-204 was a Saturn IB launch vehicle that is associated with two missions:
 * Apollo 1, scheduled to be the first crewed Apollo flight, but the crew was killed on the launch pad
 * Apollo 5, the first test of the Apollo Lunar Module, which used the AS-204 rocket that was originally intended for Apollo 1

title: AS-204


text:
ECMA

ECMA or Ecma may refer to:

 * Ecma International (formerly European Computer Manufacturers Association), a standards organization for information communication technology and consumer electronics
 * Engineering College Magazines Associated, a group of student-run engineering-based publications in the US
 * East Coast Music Association, that hosts the East Coast Music Awards, an annual awards ceremony in Canada

title: ECMA


text:
Loire (department)

Loire (Lêre; Léger or Leir) is a landlocked département in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France occupying the river Loire's upper reaches. Its prefecture is Saint-Étienne. It had a population of 765,634 in 2019.

History
Loire was created in 1793 when the Rhône-et-Loire département was split into two, about three years after it was created in 1790. This was a response to counter-revolutionary activities in Lyon which, by population, was the country's second largest city. By splitting Rhône-et-Loire the government sought to protect the French Revolution from the potential power and influence of counter revolutionary activity in the Lyon region.

The Loire département roughly corresponds to the former province of Forez.

The departmental capitals (prefectures) throughout its history are as follows:
 * Feurs 1793–1795
 * Montbrison 1795–1855
 * Saint-Étienne since 1855

Geography
Loire is part of the current administrative region of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and is surrounded by the départements of Rhône, Isère, Ardèche, Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, Allier, and Saône-et-Loire.

The river Loire traverses the department from south to north.

The Loire département is divided into three arrondissements:
 * Arrondissement of Montbrison
 * Arrondissement of Roanne
 * Arrondissement of Saint-Étienne

Parts of the department belong to Parc naturel régional Livradois-Forez.

Demographics
The inhabitants of the département are called Ligériens. The industrial city of Saint-Étienne with its agglomeration contains about half of the inhabitants of the département.

Population development since 1801:

Principal towns
The most populous commune is Saint-Étienne, the prefecture. As of 2019, there are 6 communes with more than 15,000 inhabitants:

Politics
The president of the Departmental Council is Georges Ziegler, elected in October 2017.

title: Loire (department)