Page 82 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

1 crew was presented to the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office manager Joseph Shea. It shows the
crew praying, and bore the message, “It isn't that we don't trust you, Joe, but this time we've decided
to go over your head.”

This mockery of the viability and safety of the Apollo program undoubtedly did not sit well with
those who wanted to present to the public an image of continual progress and success in pursuit of
landing men on the Moon. In a telling indication of the rancor between the crew and the program
managers, the last words spoken by Gus Grissom before the fire in the capsule related to a glitch in
the radio system which the men used to speak to the ground crew. Grissom stated, “How are we
going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two buildings?”

Grissom had already had a serious conflict with the space program’s managers when in 1961 the
hatch on his Liberty Bell 7 capsule had prematurely opened after splash down. NASA sought to pin
the blame on Grissom, suggesting he panicked and opened the hatch too early in his haste to get out.
Astronaut Wally Schirra presented the best evidence defending Grissom. After detonating the
explosive bolts on his Sigma 7 capsule, Schirra’s hands were bruised and cut. There was no visible
injury to Grissom’s hands. NASA, however, was loathe to admit they had faulty equipment. Grissom
had a contentious relationship with NASA management from that time until his death in the Apollo
1 fire.

On the documentary Moon Shot, at the 1 hour and 44 minute mark, Lola Morrow, the astronauts’
secretary, spoke of the unusually subdued character of the three member crew on that morning. Their
behavior was an anomaly for which she offered no explanation. She states, “In the morning when
the crew came in to the office, you know, I sensed something. I do not know what it was that I sensed,
but I picked up something from all three of them. There was a quietness about them. Instead of being
ready for a test, where they usually just get up and bounce out the door, it was something they didn’t
want to do. Their attitude was 180 from anything I had ever seen before.”

https://youtu.be/jia78xRMTEc?t=1h44m

What was the cause of these men’s reluctance to perform the simulation that morning? Did they have
a premonition that something tragic was about to happen? Did they sense their lives were in peril?
Did they mistrust the government they were working for?

Perhaps it struck the men as odd that NASA had mounted an obsolete version of the command
module atop the Saturn rocket to be used for their simulation that day. NASA would not be
disadvantaged materially if the obsolete command module were totaled for they already had come