So, while worrying about space in the early morning, as you do, I wondered if I remembered the names of the Apollo 1 astronauts. (I Googled. Turns out I did.)
Among the other related searches Google recommended was, “What happened to Apollo 2 to 6?”
“Well they were boring,” I thought. “Unmanned.”
I had no idea, but Apollo 1 wasn’t Apollo 1 until after the tragedy. It was originally just Mission AS-204. They bumped up the mission name to Apollo 1 to honor the dead astronauts.
Then, because there had been two other missions equivalent to that one, those became imaginary Apollo 2 and 3, until they started up again with the planned unmanned Apollos 4 – 6.
I mean, I am just gobsmacked I didn’t know this.