Betty Grissom

Betty Lavonne Grissom (née Moore; August 8, 1927 – October 7, 2018) was the wife of American astronaut Gus Grissom, one of the Mercury Seven astronauts.

After her husband's death, she was the plaintiff in a successful lawsuit against a NASA contractor which established a precedent for families of astronauts killed in service to receive compensation. Her husband died in the first fatal accident in the history of the United States space program. Grissom has been portrayed in the books The Right Stuff (1979) by Tom Wolfe and The Astronaut Wives Club (2013) by Lily Koppel and by the actors Veronica Cartwright and JoAnna Garcia in the film and television adaptations of those books.

Early life Betty Lavonne Moore was born in 1927 in Mitchell, Indiana to Claude and Pauline (née Sutherlin) Moore. Her father worked at a cement plant. Gus was selected as an astronaut after flying over a hundred combat missions in Korea. He became one of the Mercury Seven and was the second American in space. Betty Grissom formed the Astronaut Wives Club along with the wives of the other Mercury 7 astronauts, to support one another while their husbands prepared for and achieved spaceflight.

Husband's death and aftermath Gus Grissom (left), Betty Grissom (center), and NASA Administrator James E. Webb (right) speak to the media at Patrick Air Force Base, 1961 On January 27, 1967, Gus Grissom, along with fellow astronauts Roger Chaffee and Ed White, died when an electrical fire engulfed the Apollo 1 command module during testing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When Ms. Grissom received the news she said that she had "already died 100,000 deaths" being married to an astronaut. Investigations concluded that the "most probable" cause of the fire was an electrical spark that set ablaze flammable insulation in the capsule, exacerbated by the pure oxygen atmosphere. Escape was prevented by a plug hatch that was impossible to open against the above-atmospheric pressure inside the cabin. These design flaws were fixed by NASA before the next crewed mission.

Grissom died on October 7, 2018, at the age of 91. She outlived her husband by 51 years.

Publications