Epilogue
December 14, 1964
The Orlando Sentinel
A fire aboard a three-man test mission at Cape Kennedy claimed the lives of two astronauts last night. Astronauts Robert Young and Derek Trager were trapped inside the Gemini capsule as a fire overtook the launchpad, and while firefighters rushed to the scene to stop the blaze, the loss of life and the destruction of the spacecraft were catastrophic for the space program.
“We are devastated by the loss of two of our own,” Arvin North, Head of Launch Operations at NASA, said when contacted late last night. “At this point, we know that there was a dramatic increase in the crew’s biomedical readings in the capsule, and that their oxygen flow was off the charts. We think a power surge potentially caused the fire, and at this point, all we know is that the latch would not release on the door in time for all three men to escape unharmed.”
A third astronaut, Murphy Hendricks, was pulled from the flames unconscious and is reportedly suffering from potentially life-threatening fourth degree burns.
“We are committed to former President Kennedy’s mission to reach the moon before the close of this decade,” Arvin North said. “And though this terrible tragedy will give us temporary pause as we reevaluate our technology and our spacecraft, we will not give up. With great reward often comes great risk, and no man attempts to reach space without that knowledge.”
Further information will be reported as NASA releases it. This is a developing story.