(Rusty B) wrote in message om...
Ed Givens.

Perhaps there should be a adjacent memorial for those who died while
working on
the space program.

People like Givens, pad rats who died in work accidents etc. They
shouldnt be
forgotten......


Okay. What was America's worst rocket related accident with the
greatest loss of life?


"http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4211/ch10-5.htm"
describes two accidents, including one I knew about that happened
at the Cape Canaveral Delta Spin Test Facility. As I recall, the
worst part of the latter incident was that the trapped workers could
not escape because the overpressurized room made it almost impossible
to open the inwardly hinged exit doors while the solid motor continued
to burn...

Clearly, these people deserve some kind of memorial.


"... On 5 October 1967, at Northern American Rockwell's plant in
Downey, California, a hazardous mixture containing barium used in NASA
sounding rocket experiments exploded, killing 2 workmen and injuring
11. The accident was thoroughly investigated by a NASA board and the
procedures for handling such chemicals were revised. To the public,
however, the matter appeared to pass as just another industrial
accident.

Just as tragic as the Apollo fire was the accident to an Orbiting
Solar Observatory on 14 April 1964. In an assembly room at Cape
Canaveral, Delta rocket's third stage motor had just been mated to the
spacecraft in preparation for some prelaunch tests. Suddenly the
rocket ignited, filling the workroom with searing hot gases, burning
11 engineers and technicians, 3 of them fatally. An investigation
following the accident showed that a spark of static electricity had
probably set off the fuze that ignited the solid propellant. But,
whereas the Apollo fire had evoked a national outcry, the OSO accident
drew little attention except from those closely associated with the
project."

- Ed Kyle