50 Fun Facts About Gus Grissom

Which fruit did Gus Grissom hang on the Apollo 1 simulator to show what he thought of it?

A lemon, picked from a tree in his own back yard, was Grissom's verdict on a trainer that could not keep pace with the spacecraft's constant changes.

NASA disliked Gus Grissom's Gemini 3 nickname, Molly Brown, so which alternative name did he offer?

Titanic was the cheeky counter-offer, so NASA gave in and let Molly Brown stand. The joke was aimed at his Mercury capsule, which had sunk in the Atlantic in 1961.

Which contraband snack did Gus Grissom's Gemini 3 crewmate pull from a pocket and offer him in orbit?

Corned beef sandwich crumbs could have fouled the electronics, so both men were reprimanded after a few bites. Grissom still called the gag a highlight of the flight.

Which condition nearly cost Gus Grissom his place among the Mercury astronauts during medical screening?

Hay fever almost disqualified him, until Grissom argued that it would not matter because there is no ragweed pollen in space.

Flight crew chief Deke Slayton wrote that Gus Grissom would have been his top pick for which role?

First man on the Moon was the role Slayton had in mind, because he wanted a Mercury veteran to take those steps. Two senior NASA managers backed his choice of Grissom.

Which CBS drama named its lead investigator after astronaut Gus Grissom at its star's request?

CSI star William Petersen, a great admirer of the astronaut, asked for the change. His character had been scripted as Gil Sheinbaum before becoming Gil Grissom.

Which future Breaking Bad actor played Gus Grissom in the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do!?

Bryan Cranston went on to play a second real astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.

What did Gus Grissom have painted on his Liberty Bell 7 capsule to match its namesake in Philadelphia?

A crack, drawn as a jagged painted stripe, completed the tribute. Colleagues teased him about it after the capsule sank at the end of the flight.

Gus Grissom got his nickname from a misread scorecard, so what was the astronaut's real first name?

Virgil Ivan Grissom became Gus when a friend read a scorecard upside down and took the abbreviation Griss for Gus.

Gus Grissom raced fellow Mercury astronauts around Cape Canaveral in which sports car, leased for a dollar a year?

Chevrolet Corvette leases at a dollar a year were a car dealer's marketing coup, and six of the seven Mercury astronauts signed up. Only John Glenn declined.

Which gas, filling the sealed Apollo 1 cabin at high pressure, fed the fire that killed Gus Grissom?

Oxygen at above sea-level pressure made even ordinary materials burn fiercely, including the nylon netting and Velcro that lined the cabin.

The fire that killed Gus Grissom broke out during what kind of activity at Cape Kennedy?

A launch rehearsal known as the plugs-out test was under way, and it had been rated non-hazardous because the rocket carried no fuel.

Where was Gus Grissom buried, at a service attended by President Lyndon Johnson?

Arlington National Cemetery holds Grissom beside crewmate Roger Chaffee, while the third member of the crew was buried at West Point, as he had wished.

Which Apollo 1 crewmate of Gus Grissom had earlier become the first American to walk in space?

Ed White floated outside Gemini 4 in June 1965 while Grissom talked to the crew from Houston as the capsule communicator.

Which journalist wrote The Right Stuff, the 1979 book about Gus Grissom and his fellow Mercury astronauts?

Tom Wolfe wanted to outdo Norman Mailer's book on the first Moon mission, and interviewed test pilots, astronauts and their wives to do it.

Which actor played Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff, the 1983 film about the Mercury astronauts?

Fred Ward's Grissom seems to panic at splashdown, a portrayal that drew the film's heaviest criticism and that one fellow Mercury astronaut never forgave.

Whose inner-ear disorder grounded him and handed Gus Grissom command of the first crewed Gemini flight?

Alan Shepard was sidelined by Ménière's disease, which causes dizziness and nausea. Surgery corrected it in 1968, and he went on to command Apollo 14.

Which astronaut, later a moonwalker and the first Space Shuttle commander, was Gus Grissom's pilot on Gemini 3?

John Young got the seat in a crew reshuffle, because the head of flight crews judged him a better personality match for Grissom than the original choice.

Which Mercury veteran commanded Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo flight, after the fire that killed Gus Grissom?

Wally Schirra had led Grissom's backup crew, and the flight made him the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.

What kind of spaceflight was Gus Grissom's 15-minute trip aboard the Mercury capsule Liberty Bell 7?

A suborbital hop took him about 118 miles up and 300 miles downrange, which made him the second American in space without circling the Earth.

Commanding Gemini 3 made Gus Grissom the first NASA astronaut to reach which milestone?

Fly in space twice was a feat only one American had managed before him: Joe Walker, at the controls of the X-15 rocket plane.

As Liberty Bell 7 sank, what was dragging Gus Grissom under while helicopters hovered overhead?

His leaking spacesuit lost buoyancy because he had forgotten to close an inlet valve, and the downwash from two helicopters made staying afloat harder still.

A later Mercury astronaut who blew his own capsule hatch on purpose suffered what injury, one Gus Grissom lacked?

A bruised hand came from hitting the stiff release plunger. Grissom had no such mark, which supported his account that he never touched it.

A 2021 analysis of recovery film suggested what set off Liberty Bell 7's hatch as a helicopter reached Gus Grissom?

Static electricity builds up on a helicopter in flight, and the co-pilot recalled an arc jumping to his cutting pole just before the hatch blew.

Which coins, hidden aboard as flight souvenirs, were found inside Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 when it was raised?

Mercury dimes, tucked into the capsule as souvenirs, were still aboard after 38 years on the seabed, as was Grissom's survival knife.

Which TV network financed the 1999 expedition that raised Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 from the Atlantic seabed?

Discovery Channel money backed the end of a 14-year hunt led by Curt Newport, who found the capsule nearly 16,000 feet down.

In which US state is the Cosmosphere museum, home to Gus Grissom's restored Liberty Bell 7 capsule?

Kansas has the Cosmosphere in the city of Hutchinson, whose restorers took the capsule apart, cleaned it and sent it on a national tour.

Which rocket, adapted from an Army ballistic missile, launched Gus Grissom on his Liberty Bell 7 flight?

Redstone was the oldest missile in the American fleet, with years of successful test flights, which is why NASA trusted it with its first astronauts.

Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 was the first Mercury capsule to fly with which feature astronauts had demanded?

A proper window replaced two small portholes, and Grissom found the view so absorbing that he struggled to concentrate on his controls.

Too short for varsity basketball at Mitchell High School, Gus Grissom joined which team instead?

Swimming came after his father urged him to find a sport that suited him better. In class he was an average student who shone only at mathematics.

Gus Grissom grew up in Mitchell, where his father was a railroad signalman, in which Midwestern state?

Indiana kept the link alive: his boyhood street in Mitchell was renamed Grissom Avenue after his Mercury flight, and his old home still stands on it.

Which university, nicknamed the Cradle of Astronauts, awarded Gus Grissom his mechanical engineering degree?

Purdue also taught Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan, the first and last people to walk on the Moon. Grissom paid part of his tuition through the G.I. Bill.

Which jet fighter did Gus Grissom fly on 100 combat missions during the Korean War?

F-86 Sabre pilots fought the war's jet-against-jet duels with Soviet-built MiG-15s. Grissom asked to stay on for 25 more missions and was turned down.

Which night-shift job did Betty Grissom work to help pay for Gus Grissom's engineering degree?

Telephone operator shifts on the long-distance lines paid the bills while Gus studied by day and cooked part-time at a local restaurant.

At which California air base, famous from The Right Stuff, did Gus Grissom attend test pilot school?

Edwards trained him from 1956 to 1957, after which he tested fighters at Wright-Patterson in Ohio until a top-secret summons to Washington arrived.

Before he was famous, Gus Grissom appeared as an extra in which 1951 film with Rock Hudson in a small role?

Air Cadet was shot on real training bases, starting at Randolph in Texas, and Grissom is glimpsed early on as a candidate for flight school.

The Gemini cockpit was built so closely around Gus Grissom that most other astronauts had which problem?

Too tall to fit inside: NASA found that 14 of its 16 astronauts could not squeeze into the craft they called the Gusmobile, so later cockpits were modified.

Gus Grissom's Gemini 3 became the first crewed spacecraft to perform which feat in space?

Change its own orbit: a thruster burn over Texas at the end of the first lap lowered the path, a skill that the planned flights to the Moon would depend on.

Which marine animal's eggs flew on Gus Grissom's Gemini 3 in an experiment spoiled by a broken lever?

Sea urchin eggs were aboard to test the effects of zero gravity, but a lever essential to the experiment broke off when it was pulled.

Which aircraft carrier, now a museum in New York City, was the recovery ship for Gus Grissom's Gemini 3?

USS Intrepid reached the capsule after it landed well short of target, and the crew waited inside for half an hour rather than open the hatch early.

Gus Grissom's Gemini 3 capsule is displayed at a memorial in which state park near his hometown?

Spring Mill State Park lies just east of Mitchell, and its memorial also shows visitors a short film about his life and many of his personal effects.

Why could Gus Grissom's Apollo 1 crew not open the cabin hatch quickly once the fire started?

It opened inward, so the pressure in the cabin held it shut. NASA had rejected an explosive hatch after the one on Grissom's Mercury capsule blew by accident.

Who asked NASA to reserve the name Apollo 1 for the flight Gus Grissom never got to make?

The crew's widows made the request, and NASA agreed three months after the fire. Until then the mission had officially been AS-204.

Which Apollo capsule builder did Betty Grissom sue for wrongful death after the loss of Gus Grissom?

North American Rockwell settled for $350,000 in 1972, and her case led to payments for the other two families and set a precedent for later astronaut families.

Which president presented Gus Grissom's family with the Congressional Space Medal of Honor?

Jimmy Carter handed it over in 1978, when Grissom was among the first six recipients. Betty Grissom later donated the medal to the Astronaut Hall of Fame's museum.

Grissom Hill, one of three hills named for the Apollo 1 crew of Gus Grissom, is on which world?

Mars gained the Apollo 1 Hills in 2004, when they were among the first landmarks sighted by the Spirit rover. A crater on the far side of the Moon also bears his name.

The Apollo 11 astronauts left which memento of Gus Grissom's lost flight on the lunar surface?

A mission patch from the flight that never flew was left beside medals honoring two fallen Soviet cosmonauts, Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov.

Navi, a star nickname that spells Gus Grissom's middle name backwards, belongs to which constellation?

Cassiopeia holds the star, Gamma Cassiopeiae, which Apollo crews used as a navigation marker and called Navi in memory of Grissom.

Fellow astronauts teased Gus Grissom when an airport took his name in 1965, since airports usually honor whom?

Dead aviators were the usual honorees, so Grissom shot back that this time an airport had been named for a live one. It was the field where he flew as a teenager.

A 44-foot monument to Gus Grissom in his hometown of Mitchell is made of which stone?

Limestone was shaped into a model of the rocket and capsule from his first spaceflight, and the monument was dedicated downtown in 1981.