Space Cover #636: Robert Rank flocked Apollo 1On January 27, 1967 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the tragic fire at Cape Canaveral Complex 34 during a rehearsal test. Apollo 1, designated AS-204 was the first crewed mission of the Apollo Program and had been planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbit test of the Apollo command and service module.
After the fire, the Apollo program was grounded for review and redesign. Launch Complex 34 was subsequently used only for the launch of Apollo 7 and later dismantled down to the concrete launch pedestal, which remains at the site along with a few other concrete and steel-reinforced structures. The pedestal bears two plaques commemorating the crew.
Robert Rank flocked covers depicting each of the astronauts and cancelled Satellite Beach, Fl, Jan 27, 1967, and one dated Feb 3, 1967 in New York as Mayor Lindsay proclaimed that date a day of mourning for the crew. Only 35 covers were produced for each of the astronauts and 70 covers produced for the New York cancelled cover. These are among my favorite Rank "fuzzy" covers. I have had the covers in my collection for many years but at a stamp show in 2018 I found another of the Gus Grissom covers... in a dollar box!
My father Paul Calle had gotten to know Gus Grissom well during training for Gemini when my dad would be at the Cape frequently, and then as the artist covering the Gemini 3 splashdown of Grissom and Young for the NASA Fine Art Program.
In the days after the fire he wanted to come up with a visual response for the way he and so many others felt about the loss of the astronauts. He began a 6 inch by 8 inch sketch for what he felt would be a proper tribute the the three astronauts. The composition evolved showing Grissom, White and Chaffee to be painted in negative, in black and white standing in front of the gantry. The negative depiction would symbolize that although physically they were no longer there, they always will be. The grass they were standing in would be painted in full color and the gantry also in full color, the bright red structure showing through the negative image of the astronauts against the bright blue sky.
The painting was never completed but the sketch remains as a perhaps a more fitting tribute to three American heroes who were not able to complete their mission.
The Apollo 1 fire and the friendship between Neil Armstrong and Ed White are poignantly shown in the movie about Neil Armstrong, "First Man" directed by Damien Chazelle.
posted 01-23-2022 09:23 PM
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