What spacecraft exploded in 1986, killing the 7 astronauts inside?
Astronauts Day Astronauts Day Astronauts Day is an American holiday, dedicated to NASA astronauts and their achievements. It is a "floating" holiday, observed on the last Friday of January. This date was chosen to commemorate a number of space-related disasters which took place around this time, including the 27 January 1968 deaths of Command Pilot Virgil Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward Higgins White, and Pilot Roger Chaffee aboard Apollo I, and disasters involving the Space Shuttle Challenger on 28 January 1986, and the Space Shuttle Columbia on 1 February 2003. Observants of this holiday are asked to light a candle in their window,
Spacecraft call signs the number 7 (representing the seven original astronauts), and were used as the call signs by the capsule communicators (CAPCOMs). In Project Gemini, the astronauts were not officially permitted to name their two-man spacecraft, which was identified by "Gemini" followed by the mission number (3 through 12). A notable exception was that Gus Grissom named his Gemini 3 spacecraft "Molly Brown" after the "Titanic" survivor, as a joke based on his experience with his "Liberty Bell 7" capsule sinking. This name was used as a call sign by CAPCOM L. Gordon Cooper, without NASA's approval. Starting with the second flight