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Virgil Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chafee lost their lives in a fire during a pad test of the Apollo I command module...  :'(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1

Bad luck for Grissom. First he nearly drowned because the hatch opened when it wasn't supposed to open, then he burned up because the hatch couldn't be opened when it actually was to.

Ugly event.

A very nasty event indeed.

They were in too much of a hurry, I think... overlooked things that in retrospect seem elementary... but they found  a way to be more careful and yet still deliver the goods by the end of the decade.
But the whole enterprise was pretty hazardous- sometimes I think those three were watching over the whole Apollo program.

Prayers go out to them.  

January 28, 1986.

U.S. Space Shuttle, Challenger, explodes only 74 seconds into its flight. All seven members of the crew perish, including school teacher, Christa McAuliffe. The U.S. space program's worst disaster, Challenger's ill-fated flight occurs exactly 19 years and a day after the Apollo 1 tragedy that killed three astronauts.

January 28, 1986.

U.S. Space Shuttle, Challenger, explodes only 74 seconds into its flight. All seven members of the crew perish, including school teacher, Christa McAuliffe. The U.S. space program's worst disaster, Challenger's ill-fated flight occurs exactly 19 years and a day after the Apollo 1 tragedy that killed three astronauts.

Another sad event...and probably the most preventable of all three.  This was a direct cause of NASA caving to PR pressure to get the launch done with and it ended up costing 7 American lives.  Verd sad.

The week that contains Jan 27th-Feb 1st is a rough one for NASA, it contains the anniversaries of 3 of the 4 lost crews (and by the far the 3 most remembered).  The only one missing is the Gemini-IX crew who were killed on February 28, 1966.

The only one missing is the Gemini-IX crew who were killed on February 28, 1966.

Never heard about that one.

The only one missing is the Gemini-IX crew who were killed on February 28, 1966.

Never heard about that one.

That's probably because they didn't die on a space flight:

http://www.astronautix.com/flights/gemini9a.htm

Ah,those two.

That's probably because they didn't die on a space flight

Thats true, but it was a big deal at the time as it was the first crew lost as a direct result of the mission.  They died in a T-38 crash while they were going to inspect the capsule for their mission at the assembly plant.  To make matters worse, with the whole world watching, NASA nearly lost a crew in space in March of 1966 and it was only due to a lot of thinking on their feet that the astronauts survived.  

There was a lot of attention being paid to safety following the loss of Basset and See (the original Gemini-IX crew).  So, NASA was hoping to get a couple more successes under their belt to make the program look good.  The next mission to fly was Gemini-VIII which was launched the following month.  Early in the mission, only hours before the crew made history by becoming the first crew to dock with another craft in space...they began to spin out of control.  To make matters worse, they were in a communication blind spot (as NASA didn't have constant communication since the satelite network wasn't yet in space...they relied on tracking stations around the globe).  Unable to stop the spinning, the young mission commander (on his very first mission) made the decision to activate the large reentry control thrusters to regain control of the craft...it caused an automatic abort of the mission (per NASA rules) but saved their lives and perhaps the space program as a whole.  The young mission commander was a little known astronaut by the name Neil Armstrong...probably a familular name.  

Just for trivia's sake, his crewmate for that flight was another to-be moon walker...it was astronaut David Scott who would walk on the moon as commander of Apollo 15 in 1971.