Sometimes it takes a tragedy to fuel a miraculous journey. According to historian Ryan Walters, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee gave their lives on January 27, 1967, to pave the way for America’s first trip to the moon.
“Something sparked, and the spacecraft just ignited like a blow torch,” said Ryan, author and adjunct history professor at Collin College. “The temperature rose to 1,200 degrees within about five seconds. They were trapped. The fire began spilling outside the spacecraft and blew the technicians all backwards, and they were brave enough to put the fire out. That’s how the Apollo program started.”
Ryan spent nine months working on his book, Apollo I: The Tragedy that Put Us on the Moon. Based at Collin College’s Wylie Campus, he teaches a U.S. History Survey class which includes a lecture on the space race.
“Those astronauts were the bravest of the brave, working on top of a rocket with millions of pounds of explosives that could blow up at any second,” Ryan said. “They were former military test pilots who knew when they climbed into an airplane that it might be their last time. I wanted to write a positive book and keep their memories alive so people could understand how important it was. We’ve accomplished so much, but it took a tragedy to do it.”
According to Ryan, President John F. Kennedy set a 1960s deadline for the U.S. to land on the moon, and without that fire astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would not have taken those famous first steps on the lunar surface in 1969.
“This was the most complex machine man had built at that time,” Ryan said. “The fire showed us what was wrong. This tragedy gave NASA the opportunity to do their investigation and design safer spacecrafts.”
In his book, and in the classroom, Ryan explains the politics and historical dynamics behind the Apollo program. His students learn about the Cold War and Vietnam and hear accounts from people who worked at NASA as well as stories from astronauts’ relatives.
“The 1960s was a chaotic decade with Vietnam and racial protests, but at the same time we were still able to land on the moon not once but twice before 1970. I think the country should be proud of that, and I talk about it in my class.”
Ryan said he is not the only professor at the college who enriches lectures with travel tidbits, current events, and research.
“All the professors at Collin College are top notch. They are scholars,” said Ryan, who watched the Columbia shuttle launch in 1997 and traveled to Normandy and Vietnam.
The past continues to meld into the present as history unfolds before our eyes with the first commercial space flights, and those who will follow in their wake, rocketing away from earth into new frontiers. For Ryan, helping students see that continuum is the whole point.
“History is not about memorizing dates,” Ryan said. When I teach history, I make it relevant to the present because history affects you every day of your life.”
To apply and register for Collin College classes at the Wylie Campus, visit www.collin.edu/campuses/wylie.
Photo by Nick Young, Collin College photographer.
Reprinted with permission from Wylie “The Connection” magazine.