[Flag_This]

It always annoyed me that Gus Grissom was portrayed as a screw up in “The Right Stuff.”

[Yorlik803]

Yeah. Grissom was portrayed as a coward when all the other said he was the bravest man there.
If Grissom really did what the movie said, he wouldn’t have been allowed in the program again.
RIP Gus...

[ought-six]

I think it was concluded that the space capsule was lost due to his starting to panic while the capsule was still on the surface of the ocean, and he opened the hatch to climb out (fearing the capsule would sink — with him in it) before the recovery crew could get to him, which allowed the capsule to fill with water and sink.

I’m not criticizing Grissom, I’m just saying what the conclusion was after the event.

[Ready4Freddy]

Grissom was an engineer’s engineer.

He was very involved in the design of the Gemini capsule, making it the pilot-controllable flying machine that the astronauts needed, but were denied with Mercury.

He also developed the multi-axis thrusters needed for docking maneuvers.

More involved than any of the other astronauts, he made sure that we learned in Gemini the skills needed for rendezvous to make Apollo possible.

It wasn’t for nothing that he was selected as Command Pilot for the first manned Apollo mission.

[Rockingham]

I was a space program obsessed kid when Grissom's Mercury capsule was lost. At the time, there was open speculation in the TV and newspaper coverage as to whether Grissom had erred, if salt water had leaked in and shorted the hatch release circuit, or if some other fault had fired the hatch's explosive bolts.

Publicly, the issue was never fully resolved and the news media and rival astronauts sometimes treated it as a question mark against Grissom. Privately, NASA's managers knew better because Grissom's hand did not have the characteristic bruise that was always made when the hatch release mechanism was triggered by an astronaut.

The cause of the spontaneous hatch release remains unknown even after the recent recovery and conservation of Grissom's lost Mercury capsule.

[SamAdams76]

It always annoyed me that Gus Grissom was portrayed as a screw up in “The Right Stuff.”

Me too. If Gus acted improperly during that mission (where the hatch blew at splashdown), NASA would not have had him assigned to subsequent flights.

I liked the "Right Stuff" (book and movie) but also understand that much artistic license was taken.

[Ditto]

It always annoyed me that Gus Grissom was portrayed as a screw up in “The Right Stuff.”

I agree. Inside NASA, Gus was so respected that he probably would have been the first man to walk on the moon instead of Armstrong.

That 'Right Stuff' movie was a steaming pile of Hollywood BS and had little relationship with the facts.

[SunkenCiv]

That slur on Grissom pissed off Deke Slayton, who makes short work of it in one of his books.