From 1966 to 1971 I worked at Cape Canaveral on the Apollo / Saturn program . It was the most interesting job I ever had . I was assigned to the Special Gas Division. Working with liquide gases ( Cryogenics ) .

BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – On Jan. 27, 1967, tragedy struck on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204). The mission was to be the first crewed flight of Apollo, and was scheduled to launch Feb. 21, 1967.

Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the command module, or CM.

Me and two coworkers serviced the oxygen breathing system on Pad 34 were the tragedy happened. This took place the day before the test. What we did was not connected to the tragedy . We simply pressurized the battery supplying the breathing oxygen to the space craft .

This tragedy set back the entire Apollo program for one full year while the whole system was redesigned .

We were very lucky that NASA decided not to lay off the launch team because after one year they would never get back all of the team workers .

The Apollo program was off to a real bad start.

Jack B.