They Shot for the Moon

Lieutenant Colonel Grissom was one of the seven Mercury astronauts selected by NASA in April 1959.  He piloted the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft, the second and final suborbital Mercury test flight, on July 21, 1961.  This flight lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds, attained an altitude of 118 statute miles, and traveled 302 miles downrange from the launch pad at Cape Kennedy.

On March 23, 1965, he served as command pilot on Gemini III, the first manned Gemini flight, a three-orbit mission, during which the crew accomplished the first orbital trajectory modifications and the first lifting reentry of a manned spacecraft.  Subsequent to this assignment, he served as backup command pilot for Gemini VI.
He was named to serve as command pilot for the first three-man Apollo flight (Apollo I).

Gus Grissom and fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee met their deaths on January 27, 1967, at Cape Kennedy, Florida, when a flash fire consumed their spacecraft during a full-scale simulation in preparation for the subsequently scheduled launch of their Saturn/Apollo mission.

From NASA web site.