"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

-Gus Grissom

Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama was named in honor of astronaut Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom. A part of the U.S. manned space program since it began in 1959, Grissom was a decorated pilot who fought in the Korean War. His second space flight on Gemini III earned him the distinction of being the first man to fly in space twice. Slated to be one of the first men to the moon, his future was tragically cut short when he and his fellow astronauts Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee, were killed, during a simulation of the scheduled Feb. 21, 1967, launching of Apollo 1.