Astronauts Started a Fire Onboard the ISS… On Purpose

Fire and oxygen-rich environments don’t mix well, especially at 1,341,120 feet above earth with little means of escape. Although the fire onboard Apollo 1 resulted in the deaths of the crew while on the launchpad, this fire was planned and with good reason. The experiment was conducted in a controlled environment aboard the ISS to study how fire could spread in the event of an emergency and its characteristics in a microgravity environment. Unlike flames on earth, a flame in space is a spherical blob that tends to follow the path of ventilation instead of rising.