NASA's winter curse in the sign of Aquarius!
Ever heard of the "NASA's Winter Curse"? All of the major fatal accidents in the US Space Program have occurred in the Winter and within 27 to the 32nd days of the calendar year.
The crew of Apollo 1 Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee died in a training pad accident on 27 January 1967.
The Challenger crew of Francis "Dick" Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ronald McNair, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, and Christa McAuliffe died after liftoff on 28 January, 1986.
The Columbia crew of Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon died on their re-entry into the atmosphere on 1 February 2003.
In all three accidents the spacecraft was also destroyed...
Of course, that these accidents have occurred at the same time of the year is partly just a coincidence, and there have been many successful launches and flights under the Aquarius sign. The famous (non-fatal) Apollo 13 accident occurred in April. I should also note that there were a few other fatal accidents involving American astronauts that have occurred outside this window of time, but none of these occurred in space or in spacecraft.
Article about the winter curse
