Roger Bruce Chaffee (1935-1967)

American astronaut selected by NASA to fly on the first Apollo manned mission but who died on Jan. 27, 1967, along with crewmates GusGrissom and Edward White during a launch pad test at the Kennedy Space Center. Chaffee received a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1957 and immediately joined the Navy. Photographs taken while he piloted a U-2 spy plane in 1963 proved conclusively that the Soviet Union had installed offensive missiles in Cuba and were displayed by President Kennedy during a televised address. That same month, Chaffee was selected by NASA as a member of its third group of astronauts. He was assigned with Grissom and White to fly the first Apollo capsule on an 11-day mission in Earth orbit. However, a month before their scheduled launch, all three were killed aboard their capsule, during a countdown rehearsal, when a flash fire raced through their cabin