Gus Grissom in his Mercury spacesuit

Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926–January 27, 1967) was a U.S. Air Force pilot who became one of the first American astronauts.

He was born in Mitchell, Indiana and earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1950. He was married with two children.

He was chosen with the first group of Mercury astronauts in 1959 for Project Mercury. He was pilot for Mercury-Redstone 4 ("Liberty Bell 7"), the second American (suborbital) spaceflight, and command pilot for the first manned Project Gemini mission (Gemini 3), as well as backup command pilot for Gemini 6, and had been selected as commander of the first Project Apollo flight at the time of his death.

NASA management wanted one of the original Mercury Seven to be the first man to walk upon the moon. Had Grissom lived, he would very likely have been that man.

Grissom was killed along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire at Cape Kennedy.

The moon landing hoax proponents claim that the deaths were a part of a cover-up by NASA and the US government.

Grissom ARB (http://www.afrc.af.mil/434arw/) (Air Reserve Base) in Indiana is named after Gus Grissom.

The Virgil I. Grissom library in the Denbigh section of Newport News, Virginia is named after Gus Grissom. The character Gil Grissom in the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, is named after Grissom, a personal hero of series star William Petersen.

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We are 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. —Virgil I. Grissom, after the Gemini 3 mission, March 1965