- Born
- Died
- Birth nameVirgil Ivan Grissom
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Gus Grissom was born on April 3, 1926 in Mitchell, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Apollo 1 and Project Gemini: Bridge to the Moon (2008). He was married to Betty Grissom. He died on January 27, 1967 in Cape Kennedy, Florida, USA.
- SpouseBetty Grissom(July 6, 1945 - January 27, 1967) (his death, 2 children)
- One of America's original seven Mercury astronauts selected in 1959; he was the second American to fly in outer space (21 July 1961), and the first man to fly in space twice.
- He gave his Mercury spacecraft the name Liberty Bell 7.
- He was killed on 27 January 1967, along with astronauts Roger B. Chaffee and Edward H. White II, when a fire swept through the capsule of the Apollo I spacecraft during a rocket test at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
- He nicknamed his Gemini capsule "Molly Brown", after the heroine in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). He had barely escaped when his Mercury capsule sank after re-entry. (See The Right Stuff (1983).)
- Was a member of NASA's Mercury 7 project, introduced in April 9, 1959, only six months after the agency was established (together with Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper).
- If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content