Apollo 1

Main article: Apollo 1

On January 27, 1967, Grissom, White and Roger Chaffee were killed in the Apollo 1
fire. At the time, Lovell was in Washington, D.C., where, along with fellow
astronauts Neil Armstrong, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper and Richard Gordon, he
had attended the signing of the Outer Space Treaty and the reception afterwards in
the Green Room of the White House hosted by President Lyndon Johnson. Four days
later, Lovell flew to West Point, New York, with Borman in a NASA T-38 for the
funeral service for White at the Old Cadet Chapel. After the service, White was
laid to rest in the West Point Cemetery; Lovell served as a pallbearer along with
Armstrong, Borman, Conrad, Stafford and Aldrin.[67][68]

The Apollo command module was redesigned after the fire, and afterwards it
underwent a series of qualification tests.[69] In April 1968, Lovell, along with
fellow astronauts Stuart Roosa and Charles Duke, spent 48 hours in command module
CM-007A, bobbing in the Gulf of Mexico to test the seaworthiness of the Apollo
spacecraft.[70] The NASA research vessel MV Retriever stood by with technicians and
divers,[71] while the astronauts assessed how quickly the spacecraft's flotation
devices could right it from the "stable II" (upside down) position. The urine
collection hose was used to vacuum up water that entered the cabin.[69] Although
this did not seem to bother Lovell, Duke regarded it as his worst experience as an
astronaut, and Roosa became quite seasick.[72] The NASA Roundup newspaper wrote the
event up under the headline, "Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Marezine", referencing the
brand name of a motion sickness drug.[71]