The Apollo 1 command module was destroyed by fire during a test and training exercise on 27 January 1967 at Launch Complex 34, Cape Canaveral, atop a Saturn IB rocket. The crew aboard were the astronauts selected for the first manned Apollo programme mission: Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. All three died in the fire.
Roberts was a British astronomer who was a pioneer in photography of nebulae. In 1885 he had built an observatory with a 20 inch reflector. Using this instrument Roberts was to make considerable progress in the newly developing science of astrophotography. He photographed numerous celestial objects including the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades. Undoubtedly his finest work was a photograph showing the spiral structure of the Great Nebula in Andromeda, M31 on 29 December 1888.
