On 27 January 1967, I was sitting in my living room on the plains of Oklahoma as a 15-year-old schoolboy when the staggeringly tragic news was announced on our small black and white Zenith TV: the crew of Apollo 1 was killed in a launch pad fire during a test on Complex 34 at Cape Canaveral.
30 years later, my team and I were assigned to the same Launch Complex 34 to build and outfit the Scott Carpenter Undersea Space Analog Station.
This first Apollo launch pad complex had long been deserted; some of its external walls were stenciled “ABANDONED IN PLACE.” Outside, in full view of the nearby beach, were the foundational, very rusty, severed steel spars of the launch pad emerging from their concrete supports. And on one of those nearby walls was a weathered and dull brass plaque that read:
“In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that others could reach for the stars. ‘Ad Astra per Aspera’ – ‘A Rough Road Leads to the Stars’. Godspeed to the crew of Apollo 1.”
I did not even know that plaque existed until, while working very late one evening, I took a break and wandered up to the pad surface and spotted it in the full moonlight. As I read its words, it suddenly occurred to me where my team had been working so diligently for weeks – on hallowed ground.
Before that moment, I had often recalled what happened here: the loss of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. They were locked inside the compact Apollo Command Module doing a “plugs out” test (all external support severed to the capsule in a trial test of a launch sequence). The capsule’s hatch was designed to be opened from the inside in a series of complicated steps that required 90 seconds at best. But on that terrible night, there was a catastrophic flash fire in that tiny module fed by a 100% oxygen atmosphere. They did not have any chance at all to unstrap from their confined seats and open the bulky, difficult-to-operate hatch.
The inevitable investigation that held the attention of the world was led by the astronauts themselves. It revealed the painfully obvious – that everyone involved in the Apollo program was in a huge hurry to beat the Russians to the moon. Shortcuts were expected. No long fixes were allowed. And safety was given lip service at best.
All those factors led to an the same hurry-up attitude by the Apollo Command Module prime contractor, North American Aviation. Prior to the fire, Commander Gus Grissom (expected by everyone to become the first human on the moon) was particularly vocal about his concerns regarding the Command Module’s safety and quality. He famously hung a lemon on the spacecraft during a news conference, stating that it “needed some work.” And, prior to the tragedy, there were loud complaints that working in a 100% oxygen atmosphere was asking for a catastrophe. But to start a bottom-up redesign to change over to a normal air mix at that point in the program was simply unthinkable.
If I may paraphrase what happened and summarize the findings of the investigation, the early Apollo program is best described as a “Hurry Up and Die” program that led almost inevitably to the disaster.
The much-needed redesign and comprehensive engineering fix finally happened – but only after three astronauts had died. Their loss was the cost of putting on the brakes and doing it right.
Afterward, the Agency was safety-minded for a while – until the Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986. The investigation of that tragedy found exactly the same underlying cause – a “Hurry Up and Die” environment had permeated the Agency once more. After Challenger, NASA became safety-minded again… until 1 February 2003, when the Columbia Shuttle was lost on reentry. Another investigation – another “Hurry Up and Die” finding.
So here we are in 2025 in a Templar organization with a nation full of Priories that “needs some work.” The question that we face today is how will we meet and engage these specific requirements in a thoughtful process that our Grand Prior has defined as “Growth and the Oath”?
One typical lazy human response is to take the “Do Nothing Option.”
But occasionally, there is also a human tendency to respond with a hair-on-fire action: “Let’s kick the tires and light the fires and hurry up before we lose it all!” In other words, implementing the “Hurry Up and Die” response. If it works for NASA, then let’s find some retired NASA guy and put him in charge!
Well, it didn’t work for NASA on any occasion… and if you can find a retired NASA guy looking for work, for heaven’s sake, do not put him in charge! LOL
So how do we engage our Templar problem that “needs some work”?
That has a remarkably easy answer. Follow our Grand Prior’s messaging.
Why?
Because, imagine this, he has an actual plan that will work – by seriously, genuinely focusing on the Oath that we have taken with our own mouths (in other words, actually doing what we said we were going to do from day one) and then paying particular attention to the “its-no-lie-we’re-all-going-to-die” actuarial tables. Then we can reverse the ratio of the number of us lining up at the pearly gates versus the number of us at the other end of the tables, sticking around to take care of the work tomorrow.
Now pay attention to the final, most important point of this Battlefield Report:
We do not need to deliberately take a “Hurry Up and Die” approach because, beloved, the “Hurry Up and Die” approach is actually in full swing, literally chasing us down, one by one! It is a biological fact that we cannot avoid. And yet, with the “Growth and the Oath” solution, we will always have six of us available to attend to grave duty and then after the reception, go back to work. (My reception is planned as a Florida Beach Kegger. Bring a designated driver.)
How do we do this? Get to work; get down and dirty in the grime of the task ahead; sweat, worry, and burn what little time we have left. Do the time-tested rough but honored work of a Templar, and our future as an Order is assured!
So how do I end this with a bit less bluntness? Allow me to repeat a portion of the words on the Apollo 1 Plaque at Apollo Launch Complex 34 and add a bit of Solomon’s wisdom from Holy Writ:
‘Ad Astra per Aspera’ – ‘A Rough Road Leads to the Stars’ Godspeed to… all of us!
“Whatever your hands find to do – do it with all your might!” Ecclesiastes 9:10