Though NASA expected their complicated machines would not always work right, the first deaths in the space program still came as a shock -- because the fatal mishap occurred on the ground. Gus Grissom ...

Fifty years ago today, three American astronauts died in a sudden, uncontrollable cabin fire aboard the Apollo I space capsule. The deaths of Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee could ...

As the lunar module separated from the service module of Apollo 13, commander James A. Lovell Jr. got his first look at the damage. Lovell told NASA’s Mission Control, “There is one whole side of that ...

Apollo 11 astronaut Major General Michael Collins (USAF (Retired)) has died at the age of 90 after a battle with cancer. In 1969, Collins was the Command Module Pilot for the first crewed lunar ...

Apollo 14 isn’t a mission that jumps to the fore of most peoples’ minds. It didn’t break ground like Apollo 11, which landed the first humans on the moon. And it didn’t cause the stir of Apollo 13, a ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Jan. 27 is a dark day in the world of space exploration. It’s the anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire that killed three NASA astronauts, including Grand Rapids native Roger B. Chaffee.

On July 26, 1971, at 9:34 am EDT, Apollo 15 lifted off the Pad A of Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center on the first true lunar exploration mission. Using an improved Lunar Module, the ninth ...

Apollo 17 was the last Apollo mission to land men on the moon. It was launched by a Saturn V rocket Dec. 7, 1972, carrying Commander Eugene Cernan, command module pilot Ron Evans and lunar module ...

In the wake of the near disaster with Apollo 13, NASA took precautionary plans with the following mission to tighten safety regulations and procedures. The eighth crewed mission in the Apollo program, ...