When Powers threatened to resign, Scheer accepted his resignation.[8] Henceforth, NASA would make information freely available, not because it felt that it was under any legal obligation to do so, but because it was good policy to do so.[9] Scheer was capable of withholding information; in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire he refused to issue any statement until the families of the three astronauts had been informed of their deaths.[1]