5 Jul 2008
Virgil I. Grissom (1926-1967)
Virgil I. Grissom (1926-1967) was a NASA astronaut. He was one of the seven Mercury astronauts selected by NASA in 1959 and he piloted the final Mercury test flight in 1961. In 1965, he was command pilot on the first manned Gemini flight where the crew made the first orbital trajectory modifications and accomplished the first lifting re-entry of a manned spacecraft. Grissom was command pilot for the first three-person Apollo flight in 1967 but died when the Apollo spacecraft caught fire during a launch pad test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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