Gus Grissom and the Hatch

I think the way it's told in The Astronaut Wives Club is largely accurate, though it's made to sound more definitive than it actually was.

The part about the brusing is accurate: as a test, Wally Schirra (I think) intentionally blew a hatch (when the spacecraft wasn't in the water, obviously), and he was bruised.

The likelihood that he panicked and intentionally blew the hatch is very, very low. Consider that, when the helicopters appeared and told him they were ready to hook up and lift the spacecraft out of the water, Grissom asked them to wait for 5 minutes so he could mark down all the switch positions, and continued to ask them to wait several more times.* He spent over 10 minutes sitting in the spacecraft after splashdown, and more than seven of them were after the helicopter was above him, ready to hook up.

They tried to figure out some possible way he could have accidentally hit the trigger, but that was essentially impossible.

The explanation given on the show is the most likely one, though I don't think anybody has ever said that as definitely as Grissom made it sound on the show. There was a lanyard on the exterior that could be pulled to blow the hatch. It's possible that it came loose (it was held down by a single screw: in later missions it was better secured) and got fouled with parachute cords or something else.

As far as how Grissom was judged by his fellow astronauts and the space program generally: remember that he was assigned to fly the first Gemini mission <i>and</I> the first Apollo mission, and that Deke Slayton said he hoped Grissom would command the first moon landing. That wasn't just the result of automatic deference to old hands either: Carpenter was more or less sent packing altogether, and Cooper was as well some years later, during the Apollo years. Schirra would have been after Apollo 7, if he hadn't already decided to leave NASA anyway (the rest of his crew never flew again).

The version of events shown in The Right Stuff doesn't definitively say what happened, but - at least in my opinion - it's quite unfairly critical of Grissom.
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*Excerpts from the transcript of radio communications, which can be found pretty easily on line (time are minutes and seconds after liftoff):

15:37 [Spacecraft landed in the water]

16:35 Grissom: Roger, my condition is good; OK, the capsule is floating, slowly coming vertical, have actuated the rescue aids. The reserve chute has jettisoned, in fact I can see it in the water, and the whip antenna should be up.

18:27 Helicopter: This is Hunt Club 1, we are in orbit now at this time, around the capsule

18:32 Grissom: Roger, give me about another 5 minutes here, to mark these switch positions here, before I give you a call to come in and hook on. Are you ready to come in and hook on anytime?

18:40 Helicopter: Hunt Club 1, roger we are ready anytime you are.

18:44 Grissom: OK, give me about another 3 or 4 minutes here to take these switch positions, then I'll be ready for you.

20:17 Helicopter: Will we be interfering with any TM if we come down and take a look at it?

20:26 Grissom: Negative, not at all. I'm just going to put the rest of this stuff on tape and then I'll be ready for you, in just about 2 more minutes, I would say.

25:19 Grissom: OK, Hunt Club. This is Liberty Bell 7. Are you ready for the pickup?

25:26 Helicopter: This is Hunt Club 1; this is affirmative.

25:30 Grissom: OK, latch on, then give me a call and I'll power down and b hatch, OK?

25:36 Helicopter: This is Hunt Club 1, roger, will give you a call when we're ready for you to blow.

25:42 Grissom: Roger, I've unplugged my suit so I'm kinda warm now.

25:46 Helicopter: 1, roger.

25:52 Grissom: Now if you tell me to, ah, you're ready for me to blow, I'll have to take my helmet off, power down, and then blow the hatch.

25:58 Helicopter: 1, roger, and when you blow the hatch, the collar will already be down there waiting for you, and we're turning base at this time.

26:09 Grissom: Ah, roger.

That was the last radio transmission before the hatch blew.

One more thing, there was a great mini series on HBO called From the Earth to the Moon. In the series an engineer said Gus Grissom was correct, the hatch just blew. Although the mini series was not a documentary, countless interviews with people associated with NASA were conducted to write the most accurate portrayal possible.

Gus did not blow the hatch, as far as NASA was concerned.

There is evidence to support this including the fact that his hand was not bruised. With the hatch he had, if he tried to blow it, that particular hatch would have taken a bite of skin out of his hand sort of how an automatic pistol can take a bite out of a shooters hand if the gun is not properly designed. NASA later fixed that problem.

NASA always liked and respected Gus. He flew in the Gemini program and was scheduled to fly on the first Apollo flight but was killed in a fire - due in large part to the fact that the hatch of his Apollo spacecraft could not open quickly.

Had he not been killed in the fire, there was a fair to good chance that Gus would have been the first man to walk on the moon.

Besides the bruising, the biggest piece of evidence NASA didn't believe Grissom blew the hatch is he flew in Gemini and continued into Apollo, where he died. They simply wouldn't have kept him if they thought he'd panicked. He'd have quietly retired.

Grissom was badly maligned in the movie and the book by Tom Wolfe it was based on. If NASA had really thought he was incompetent they would not have made him the commander of the first Gemini mission, and then commander of the first Apollo mission (a role he was unable to fulfill because he was killed). Obviously, the fact that they gave him these responsibilities proves they felt he was exceptionally good at his job. Wolfe and the film makers made up BS and screwed Grissom posthumously. Unfortunately, most people believe what was depicted in the movie.