Biography

One of the fourteen Apollo astronauts selected in 1963, the third group of astronauts chosen; Apollo I was to have been his first spaceflight.

He was killed on 27 January 1967, along with astronauts Gus Grissom 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.

Awarded the United States Navy Air Medal and posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

His name has been memorialized many times in many places: a crater named Chaffee on the far side of the Moon; Chaffee Hill on Mars; the star Gamma Velorum was nicknamed "Regor" ("Roger" spelled backwards) in his honor; Island Chaffee, an artificial island in San Pedro Bay off Southern California; the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium in Grand Rapids, Michigan; the Roger B. Chaffee Memorial Boulevard in Wyoming; the Roger B. Chaffee Scholarship, awarded annually to exceptional students in math and science in Grand Rapids; and other parks, streets, and schools.

The world itself looks cleaner and so much more beautiful. Maybe we can make it that way - the way God intended it to be - by giving everyone, eventually, that new perspective from out in space.

Problems ... look mighty small from 150 miles up. [In his last public interview before he died with astronauts Gus Grissom and Edward H. White II in a fire aboard Apollo 1 during a simulated launch, 23 Apr 1967]