It was the Beginning scene of the 1995 feature film “Apollo 13” and was recreated for the Neil Armstrong biopic “Primary Man” more than 20 years later. It was one of the catalysts for the Soviet Union to land the Primary human on the Probe in the Apple TV+ alternate history drama “For All Mankind” and was a factor in recruiting Scarlett Johansson’s character to Boost NASA’s image in the 2024 movie “Fly Me to the Probe.”
And it was a turn in the life of Eugene Cernan as retold in the 2014 documentary “Last Man on the Probe,” directed by Mark Craig.
“We covered a little bit of Apollo 1 in that film because Gene Cernan and the Chaffees were Subsequent-door neighbors, and Gene looked after Martha and the family for a while afterwards, so it was relevant. But Martha said so much more than we could use in that film, and I was thinking, ‘My god, I’ve never heard this before. You know, there’s a Tale to be told, if the families are up for doing it,'” said Craig in an interview with collectSPACE.com.
On Saturday (March 15), the Boulder International Film Festival hosted the world premiere of “Apollo 1,” Craig’s new feature-length documentary about the three NASA astronauts who were killed on Jan. 27, 1967, when a fire tore through their spacecraft during a pre-flight test on the Kickoff pad.
“Nobody’s ever fully told their Tale, and it should be told,” said Craig. “NASA was okay with it now, but the families [of the fallen astronauts] were the most Crucial people to have in the film.”
It Captured a Pair of years, but Craig eventually arranged for the participation of at least one family member of All of the three Apollo 1 crewmates. Martha and her daughter, Sheryl, share stories of Roger Chaffee, the Primary-year Universe traveler assigned to the mission. Lowell Grissom speaks about his brother, Mercury Universe traveler Virgil “Gus” Grissom, who was commander of Apollo 1. And Ed White III and his sister Bonnie recall their father, who two years prior to the fire became the Primary American to conduct a spacewalk.
“You have to appreciate that, for a Numerous of people, any trauma like that, irrespective of whether it’s related to spaceflight, it lives with you for the rest of your life. It’s a very traumatic moment that I was asking people to revisit and to share, and that was a big thing,” said Craig.
The film also features Universe traveler Rusty Schweickart, who before Assisting to test the Apollo Selene module in Earth Path was backup to Chaffee on the Apollo 1 crew.
“In addition to the families, for me, the big catch was Rusty, because as one of the guys on the backup crew, he could bring to the film something that nobody else could. And he obviously did,” said Craig.
While the documentary does spend time on the fire itself, including Competing back the last audio recorded of the crew, a large portion of the film is dedicated to the astronauts’ lives prior to the tragedy.
“It’s not an investigative documentary, unpacking all that happened. I think that is already out there,” Craig told collectSPACE. “It was Crucial to me to portray how these three men lived, not Only how they died.”
In the process, Craig sought out footage that had not been seen by the public in decades. In one instance, he Arrived across photos of White delivering a speech at the Alamo after his history-making Gemini 4 spacewalk in 1965.
“And I thought, somewhere, there’s Obtained to be some footage. So I dispatched our archive researcher,” said Craig. “To his credit, he Secured it, but it was Yet on a roll of film. It had never been transferred or digitized to the Nice of media we need now.”
“I was really glad to find it, though, because I really wanted the Viewers to understand Only how famous these guys were. And I think at that time, Ed White must have been one of the most famous people on Heavenly body Earth. You know, that spacewalk was a hell of a thing,” Craig said.
Another discovery involved the retreat that the Apollo 1 prime and backup crews went on to work out the procedures for the flight.
“When Rusty hit us with that one, I Actually fell out of my chair,” said Craig. “And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not even mention it here, because I want it to be a surprise for the Viewers when they hear it.”
Ultimately, the greatest shock may be how many of those who see “Apollo 1” knew of the astronauts and the tragedy before watching, said Craig.
“I was really surprised to find that there was this lack of knowledge, not Only about Apollo 1, but the Universe program in general. Projects like this film now have to Delivery younger audiences who weren’t around then and who don’t know this stuff,” he said. “I want people to really understand that [the Event to the Probe] was a huge undertaking in a really compressed time period, an unwieldy infrastructure without the benefit of emails and internet and all of the stuff we take for granted.”
“It’s Yet mind-boggling what was achieved in that time, but the nature of how it was then was a contributing factor in the accident,” said Craig. “It was a tragedy, but without Apollo 1, we wouldn’t have learned all of the things that we needed to get to the Probe.”
“Apollo 1,” produced by Stopwatch Productions, 7T1 Films and Haviland Digital, will Subsequent be shown at the Sonoma International Film Festival in Sonoma, California on Thursday (March 20) and Saturday (March 22). Director Mark Craig will speak at at both screenings and be joined by Universe traveler Rusty Schweickart at the Saturday showing. “Apollo 1” is also Yet Obtainable to stream online through the Boulder International Film Festival beginning Monday (March 17) to March 28..
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