Apollo 1 documentary screening at GRPM tomorrow

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]The Grand Rapids Public Museum is hosting a screening on the Apollo 1 disaster. Grand Rapids [snorts] native Roger Chaffee was one of the three astronauts killed in a fire that erupted during a pre-flight test, killing the trio in a matter of seconds. Joining us now live in studio is award-winning director Mark Craig and Grand Rapids Public Museum curator emeritus David DeBruyn. Thank you both for being here with us. Uh Dave, let's just first kind of set the scene and take us back to that day in 1967. Well, I I was already working at the uh planetarium here in Grand Rapids in 1967 when the Apollo fire took place and it was a very shocking experience for me personally to pick up a paper. I was I was visiting out of town with my parents at the time and just kind of sat down, picked up the paper and oh my goodness.

[00:00:50]Because I had heard about Roger Chaffee.

[00:00:52]I had never had a chance to meet him, but I knew he was a Grand Rapids native and it was a very big deal that he would be one of the first astronauts to uh venture out into space and maybe even one day set foot on the moon. So, it was a big shock, a huge shock.

[00:01:10]Um It set in motion, of course, a huge number of changes including right here at the planetarium where the director at the time Welden Frankfort suggested that we name it after Roger Chaffee as a kind of a uh memorial.

[00:01:27]Which turned out to be just a marvelous idea. So, to this day the planetarium, of course, is a tribute to Chaffee.

[00:01:33]Yeah. And Mark, just talk to us more about this film and what it took to put this together.

[00:01:39]It took a few years and quite a lot of people and who I'm very happy to represent here today, uh this week. Um my first time in Grand Rapids.

[00:01:48]Um I I think it was through meeting Martha Chaffee uh about a dozen years ago now. Uh I interviewed her for another space documentary that I was directing at the time.

[00:02:00]And we just stayed in touch and um what she talked about in in that first interview about the Apollo 1 really planted a seed and I thought, "Wow, you know, I wonder if it's possible to get the families involved and tell their side of the story. Um cuz that was really what I wanted to do. I I wanted to make a film not just focusing on a tragedy, but but to understand the lives of these three extraordinary men and their families and and just the the personal side behind the the the the science and the history. Okay. So, when is the screening?

[00:02:36]Tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. in the Meyer Theater, second floor of the Grand Rapids Public Museum. It's actually a very definitive film on the subject of Apollo 1. Mark is to be really commended for taking a subject that has a very sensitive story behind it and in bringing it to the screen and documenting what was [snorts] really one of the great space tragedies in the history of space travel. So timely with the Artemis mission.

[00:03:10]>> Right.

[00:03:12]It's the second coming of Apollo 8 in a sense. I remember how impressed I was with the Apollo 8 mission that sent three astronauts into orbit around the moon in 1968. That was the first time ever that anyone had gone that far.

[00:03:31]Mhm. And I was alive and impressed by that and I'm really thinking how fortunate the young people of today are to see this kind of repeat of that same story Mhm.

[00:03:47]and what it could lead to. Probably some really wonderful things. Yeah. I I ju- just to pick up on that. I I think um what I hope people will take away from the film is just how pivotal an event that was in the in the history of human spaceflight. Uh because as as Dave said, you know, there were so many changes had to be implemented after that accident. Um that every spacecraft that ever flew since, you know, owes a debt to the sacrifice of the those three men. Um and as one of the the speakers in our film uh says towards the end, you know, that when that Artemis rocket launches, there'll there is a little piece of Apollo 1 aboard.

[00:04:31]And and I think an- anybody that walked on the moon, you know, didn't forget the sacrifice of uh Grissom, White, and Chaffee. Mhm.

[00:04:40]All right.

[00:04:40]>> And it'll all come to life tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. It's an award-winning film. And I think you're going to find if you make anybody that makes an effort to come, it'll be extremely rewarding and touching. I think it'll be a good turnout. A lot of people are interested, for sure. Mark and David, thank you so much for being here with us. Appreciate your time.