Using only material available on the spacecraft, Mission Control workers began devising a mechanism that would provide more carbon dioxide buffering. The ultimate solution involved using a piece of cardboard, a plastic bag, a hose from a pressure suit, duct tape and a sock to connect the command module scrubbers.
Using a clever solution of a plastic bag, cardstock, a spacesuit hose, and that stuff that holds everything together, duct tape, the engineers in Mission Control mocked up an altered lithium hydroxide filter. The astronauts then recreated the contraption (nicknamed “the mailbox”) on the LM. It was a massive success!
It's the story of the engine that brought those astronauts home, and the chemist who invented it. On April 13, 1970, Gerard Elverum's pintle injector rocket engine fired for 34 seconds to put the damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft on a safe path back to Earth.
(On the ground, the tanks were emptied by forcing oxygen gas into the tank and forcing the liquid oxygen out, in space there was no need to empty the tanks.) The heaters in the tanks were normally used for very short periods to heat the interior slightly, increasing the pressure to keep the oxygen flowing.
All three took refuge in Aquarius and, abandoning Moon landing plans, looped around the Moon, using the LM's engine to speed their return to Earth instead of landing them on the lunar surface.
To answer the updated question of "Would replacing a damaged tank have prevented the Apollo 13 incident"? Absolutely yes. Bearing in mind that that tank was damaged in two completely separate, mostly unrelated ways. It had some damaged plumbing, preventing a testing drain for completing correctly.
Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin sent a message saying:"Iwant to inform you (U.S. Government)the Soviet Government has given orders to all citizens and members of the armed forces to use all necessary means to render assistance in the rescue of the American (Apollo 13)astronauts." The Moon from Apollo 13.
NASA's subsequent investigation revealed that the No. 2 oxygen tank onboard Apollo 13 had been accidentally dropped during maintenance before the Apollo 10 mission in 1969, causing slight internal damage that didn't show up in later inspections.
It was April 17, 1970 when the crew of the Apollo 13 mission found themselves in a rather complicated situation, as well as dangerous, but thanks to an Omega Speedmaster they managed to save themselves.
The TLI placed Apollo on a "free-return trajectory" - often illustrated as a figure of eight shape. This course would have harnessed the power of the Moon's gravity to propel the spacecraft back to Earth without the need for more rocket fuel.
Update: A typical Apollo blackout lasted about 4 minutes. Due to a shallower re-entry path, Apollo 13's blackout was calculated to last about 4.5 minutes. Flight director Gene Kranz's logs show that it took about 6 minutes to re-establish contact with Apollo 13.
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.
Fifty-six hours in, with the crew nearly 200,000 miles from Earth, an explosion in one of Apollo 13's two oxygen tanks left the command module Odyssey fatally damaged.
Losing two or three fuel cells and any reentry batteries at any point in the mission demanded an emergency shutdown to conserve all onboard power for the trip home and reentry through the atmosphere. Losing one fuel cell was the only failure that didn't mean a bad day.
The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) failed two days into the mission. The crew instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17.
By the time Apollo 13 came around, the television networks didn't even bother covering the launch because they felt there wasn't enough interest. Apollo 13 was to be the most ambitious mission yet.
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 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted after rupture of service module oxygen tank. Still, it was classified as a "successful failure" because of the experience gained in rescuing the crew.
Apollo 13 is arguably the most realistic movie about space out there. The Ron Howard-directed film chronicles the challenges that the real-life crew of NASA's Apollo 13 mission faced when they had to turn around from their lunar destination after one of their oxygen tanks malfunctioned.
"They would have missed the Earth and died a lonely death in space when their oxygen ran out," Chaikin said in the narration, with initial editions including the erroneous information. "Even more chilling," he added, "their bodies would never have returned, because Apollo 13 would have circled in space forever.
The Apollo 13 mission was designated a successful failure because the crew was returned safely even though the odds were stacked against them. The success can be attributed to the amount of training and planning that goes into mission preparation.
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.
Though there were additional American and Soviet missions, after the successes of the Apollo program, the space race was widely believed to have been won by the U.S. Eventually, as the Cold War came to an end, both sides agreed to cooperate in space and construct the International Space Station, beginning in 1998.
Mattingly had been scheduled to fly on the Apollo 13 mission, but three days prior to launch, he was held back and replaced by Jack Swigert due to exposure to German measles (which Mattingly did not contract).
NASA administrators rejected these plans because of lack of funding and added risk. In August 1971, President Richard Nixon proposed to cancel all remaining lunar landings (Apollo 16 and 17).