- Born
- Died
- Birth nameVirgil Ivan Grissom
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Gus Grissom was born on April 3, 1926 in Mitchell, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Apollo 1 (2025) and Project Gemini: Bridge to the Moon (2008). He was married to Betty Grissom. He died on January 27, 1967 in Cape Kennedy, Florida, USA.
- SpouseBetty Grissom(July 6, 1945 - January 27, 1967) (his death, 2 children)
- ChildrenAllan Scott GrissomGary Mark Grissom
- ParentsDennis David GrissomCecile King
- RelativesNorman Eugene Grissom(Sibling)Lowell Dennis Grissom(Sibling)Wilma Imogene Grissom (Beavers)(Sibling)
- One of America's original seven Mercury astronauts selected in 1959; he was the second American to fly in outer space (21 July 1961), and the first man to fly in space twice.
- He gave his Mercury spacecraft the name Liberty Bell 7.
- He was killed on 27 January 1967, along with astronauts Roger B. Chaffee and Edward H. White II, when a fire swept through the capsule of the Apollo I spacecraft during a rocket test at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
- He nicknamed his Gemini capsule "Molly Brown", after the heroine in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). He had barely escaped when his Mercury capsule sank after re-entry. (See The Right Stuff (1983).)
- Was a member of NASA's Mercury 7 project, introduced in April 9, 1959, only six months after the agency was established (together with Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper).
- If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.
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