NASA made dozens of changes and resumed flying in October1968, setting the stage for the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 1969. Grissom, aged 40 and one of the original Mercury 7astronauts, became the second American in space in a suborbital flight that preceded John Glenn’s landmark first U.S. orbital space flight. Chaffee, 31, was a rookie astronaut with no previous space flight experience. “The lessons learned from Apollo 1 are critical to our future success and I don’t ever want them forgotten,” Cabana said. “We got to the moon not in spite of Apollo 1, but because of Apollo 1.”

Source: The Hindu January 28, 2017 16:42 UTC