We'll spoil it for you, now: It totally worked. (meaning: It didn't explode.) Using the same Apollo Guidance Computer (the brains of the operation) created by Draper for the Apollo 1 mission, the Apollo 4 mission launched without any “major” issues from Kennedy Space Center.
NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George Mueller, noted that the successful flight of Apollo 4 showed that NASA was back on track to land on the Moon following the Apollo 1 fire earlier in 1967.
The Apollo 13 mission was to be the third lunar landing in the program before an on board explosion forced the mission to circle the Moon without landing.
Two Apollo missions were failures: a 1967 cabin fire killed the entire Apollo 1 crew during a ground test in preparation for what was to be the first crewed flight; and the third landing attempt on Apollo 13 was aborted by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, which disabled the CSM Odyssey's electrical power ...
Less than two years earlier, on Jan. 27, 1967, the three crew members of Apollo 1 — Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee — were killed in a fire on the launchpad during a preflight test at Cape Kennedy, Fla.
Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA's Apollo program, died Tuesday in Houston.
the fire that killed Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee.
Tomorrow marks the 45th anniversary of the start of a mission that came to be known as NASA's most famous successful failure. Apollo 13 captured the world's attention after an explosion crippled the spacecraft. The three astronauts and dozens of flight controllers labored for days to solve one challenge after another.
Although the historic Apollo 11 mission's three astronauts made it home safe, a once-classified anomaly almost killed them. The problem occurred during Apollo 11's return to Earth. It caused a discarded space module to nearly crash into the crew's capsule.
Apollo 1 – 1967
A flash fire broke out in the command module of Apollo 204 during a simulated launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, killing astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee of asphyxiation.
Apollo 13 was NASA's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface. During the mission's dramatic series of events, an oxygen tank explosion almost 56 hours into the flight forced the crew to abandon all thoughts of reaching the moon.
Apollo 2 and 3: There were no craft named Apollo 2 or 3. Apparently after the Apollo-1 craft was destroyed during a pre-flight test at Cape Canaveral, the first few mission (through Apollo-6) were unmanned missions to test various aspects of the Apollo program - Launch vehicle, CSM, LM, and their inter-play.
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth on April 17, 1970.
Still today, it's the most powerful rocket ever successfully flown. This rocket, the Saturn V, could propel the weight of some four school buses to the moon. It sent astronauts to the chalky lunar surface six different times. And it hauled America's first space station, Skylab, into orbit around Earth.
Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later.
In the space of six days, the agency recalls three fatal space tragedies: the Apollo 1 fire of Jan. 27, 1967, the Challenger shuttle disaster of Jan. 28, 1986 and the Columbia shuttle accident of Feb. 1, 2003.
The six Apollo missions that landed on the moon produced 96 bags of waste. According to the NASA History Office, white jettison bags, or trash bags, are definitely still on the moon, some containing astronaut poop.
Radiation
The first hazard of a human mission to Mars is also the most difficult to visualize because, well, space radiation is invisible to the human eye. Radiation is not only stealthy, but considered one of the most menacing of the five hazards.
According to the 200-page report, Grissom, Chaffee, and White had died of cardiac arrest from inhaling too much carbon monoxide and falling asleep. All three astronauts were gone long before they sustained burns. It was a horrific way to go nonetheless, and the waves of grief affected everyone in the program.
For the Apollo 13 mission, the blackout was much longer than normal because the flight path of the spacecraft was unexpectedly at a much shallower angle than normal.
The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the command module (CM).
The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.
After orbiting the Moon 31 times, Apollo 10 returned safely to Earth; its success enabled the first crewed landing during Apollo 11 two months later.
On Christmas morning, Apollo 8 left its lunar orbit and began its journey back to Earth, landing safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 27. On July 20 of the following year, Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first men to walk on the moon.