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The 1960's

An Apollo Tragedy

An Apollo Tragedy
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 6 to 8
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.94

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    determined, flotation, conquest, investigation, further, cockpit, risky, launched, simulation, possibility, flights, surrounding, orbit, spacecraft, tragedy, landing
     content words:    United States, Six Apollo, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, Edward White, Atlantic Ocean, When Grissom

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An Apollo Tragedy
By Jane Runyon 		  
1     The United States space program advanced in stages. The Mercury missions were designed to carry one man into orbit around the earth. The Gemini missions moved the payload up to two men orbiting the earth. The Apollo program was designed to carry three men into space. The goal was to land humans on the moon and bring them safely back to earth. Six Apollo missions accomplished this goal. Two were test flights to see if the equipment created for the mission would work properly. One flight was not able to land on the moon because of mechanical malfunctions. It was able to take pictures that were valuable assets to the scientific experiments being conducted.
 
2     The Apollo program, however, got off to a very shaky beginning. The first Apollo manned mission was scheduled to be launched on February 21, 1967. The astronauts assigned to this flight were Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edward White. Each of these astronauts had trained long and hard for the opportunity to reach the moon. Each was experienced with the hazards of space travel.
 
3     Gus Grissom had been the second man launched into space in the Mercury program. He was almost lost when the hinges of his escape hatch had exploded upon landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The capsule in which he had made his short flight and all the equipment on board had been lost as it sank to the bottom of the sea. Grissom had been able to crawl out of the capsule into a flotation device. It was in this raft he waited to be picked up by NASA.

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