Roger Chaffee

Roger Bruce Chaffee (February 15, 1935 - January 27, 1967) was a U.S. Navy pilot who became an American astronaut in the Apollo program.

He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and earned a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University in 1957. He was married with two children.

He was chosen in the third group of astronauts in 1963 and had made no spaceflights before being selected as lunar module pilot for the first Apollo program flight.

Chaffee died along with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom and Edward White in the Apollo 1 fire at Cape Kennedy.

The Chaffee crater on the far side of the Moon is named after him.

The US Navy school at US Naval Air Station, Bermuda was named Roger B. Chaffee from 1970 to 1995. The school was closed with the hand-over of the base to the Bermudian government and is now named Clearwater Middle School.

Chaffee is also remembered in his hometown where the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium is named after him, as well as a street and the Roger B. Chaffee Scholarship , awarded annually to exceptional students in math and science in the Grand Rapids metropolitian area.