Model Forum / General / Rockets / May 2005

Deaths of key people involved with the Apollo program

Hoax believers allege that the deaths of 10 astronauts and others
related to the program were part of a cover-up, and that NASA or other
U.S. government agencies were disposing of people who they feared would
'blow the whistle'. However, given that many tens (or hundreds) of
thousands of individuals, often with US Air Force-related careers, were
involved in the Apollo program, it is perhaps unsurprising that some
individuals have died in the intervening decades.

   * Ed Givens (car accident)
   * Ted Freeman (T-38 crash)
   * C. C. Williams (T-38 accident)
   * Elliott See and Charlie Bassett (T-38 accident)
   * Virgil "Gus" Grissom (supposedly an outspoken critic of the Space
Program) (Apollo 1 fire)
   * Ed White (Apollo 1 fire)
   * Roger Chaffee (Apollo 1 fire)
   * X-15 pilot Mike Adams (the only X-15 pilot killed during the X-15
flight test program - not a NASA astronaut, but had flown X-15 above 50
miles).
   * Robert Lawrence, scheduled to be an Air Force Manned Orbiting
Laboratory pilot who died in a jet crash shortly after reporting for
duty to that (later cancelled) program.
   * NASA worker Thomas Baron (claimed to be a coverup of a 500 page
report on the Apollo 1 accident).
   * Lee Gelvani claims to have almost convinced James Irwin, an
Apollo 15 astronaut whom Gelvani referred to as an "informant", to
confess about a cover-up having occurred. Irwin was supposedly going to
ring Kaysing about it; however he died of a heart attack before any
such telephone call occurred.

The landing believers point out that spacecraft testing and flying high
performance jet aircraft can be dangerous, and that all but one of the
astronaut deaths (Irwin's) were directly related to their rather
hazardous job. The hoax believers include two non-astronauts in their
collection of 10 'astronauts' - (Mike Adams was only considered an
astronaut because he had flown the X-15 above 50 miles altitude, but
was not associated otherwise with manned spaceflight. Robert Lawrence
died in a jet crash shortly before reporting to the Air Forces Manned
Orbiting Laboratory program, not NASA's space program). Astronaut James
Irwin had suffered several heart attacks in the years prior to his
death. Gelvani's claim that Irwin was about to come forward would be
difficult to confirm and must be considered as hearsay.