Erik Bergaust (1925–1978)

Despite the sensationalist title, this book is not only about the Apollo 1 fire. The author uses Apollo 1 as a jumping off point for his argument that NASA was incompetent in everything and nearly killed every astronaut who ever flew a mission. He likes to pepper the text with comments from a handful of anonymous space industry employees who bemoaned just how terrible NASA really was.

He also rages against the idea of the race to the moon. He seems to feel that the Soviets tricked us into the race to the moon. He insists the Soviets had no intention of getting to the moon, and instead are putting all their resources into more ICBMs, while we neglect our own ICBM arsenal in favor of the race to the moon.

He also spends a good deal of time attacking James Webb, who he REALLY didn't like.

He did call for several changes to be made in the space program, including: reusable rockets to save money, nuclear powered rockets and a MMU for spacewalking astronauts. Interestingly enough, all were developed and are either in use, or retired to museums.

The book's legacy is somewhat hampered by the fact that America did make it to the moon without killing anyone else, and the Soviets were trying really hard to beat us to the moon. It almost feels like this book was less about the crew of Apollo 1, and more about the author's anger at NASA. I also noticed minor technical errors throughout the text. I have a feeling we would have seen another book, longer and even angrier, had the author lived to see the Challenger and Columbia accidents. Erik Bergaust died in 1978.… (more)