Why Apollo Had a Flammable Pure Oxygen Environment

Apollo 10 Astronauts Thomas P. Stafford and Eugene A. Cernan in the Lunar Module Mission Simulator. (Credit: NASA) Fire, as we know, needs three things: a source of heat, fuel and oxygen. Apollo lunar missions had all three in spades. There was plenty of electricity running through the spacecraft, lots of material that could be fuel and a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere under pressure. So why exactly did NASA design a spacecraft that was an explosion waiting to happen? (This is a question I get *a lot* so I hope this gives a full answer!) [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvA7N_j_8os[/embed] Not long after President Kennedy famously challenged America to a manned lunar landing by the end of the 1960s, NASA started figuring out how it was going to complete this daring mission, and one of the first things it needed was a spacecraft. As it had done with the Mercury spacecraft, the space agency ...