The phrase is emblazoned upon the Apollo 1 memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.: “Ad Astra Per Aspera.” I first encountered it in my childhood -- I’m almost certain it was after the 1986 Challenger disaster -- and it struck me even then, as if ringing some strange aspirational chord within my imagination, one as full of serious purpose as the somber assonances of its Latin suggested: “To the stars, through difficulties.”

And difficulties there were. On January 27, 1967, during a launchpad rehearsal for the planned February launch of the Apollo 1 spacecraft -- the first ...

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