Dec 18 1997
From The Space Library
President William J. Clinton awarded Congressional Space Medals of Honor to Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chafee, who died in the Apollo 1 fire. Clinton presented the medals to members of the men's families in a ceremony in the Oval Office. White and Chafee were part of the three-man crew involved in the tragedy, which had occurred more than 30 years earlier. On 27 January 1967, the Apollo 1 space capsule had caught fire on the launchpad, killing the three men on board the spacecraft. The third member of the crew, Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, had received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978. The accident had caused NASA to institute aggressive safety procedures, placing a premium on the well-being of its astronauts. Clinton noted the contributions of the fallen astronauts, "though they never got there, astronauts Chaffee, White, and Grissom's footprints are on the moon." Besides Apollo 1's crew, only nine other astronauts had received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
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