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Dr. Silverstein speaks at a recruiting conference. Credit: NASA Silverstein chose the name "Apollo" after perusing a book of mythology at home one evening in 1960. He said the image of "Apollo riding his chariot across the sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program."
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.
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.
The Apollo 13 mission was designated a successful failure because the crew was returned safely even though the odds were stacked against them.
It was the world's first known space tragedy. Veteran space pilots Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, 40, and Edward H. White, 36, and rookie Roger Chaffee, 31, died in flames while lying on their backs in their moonship in a routine ground test for their Feb.
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly.
During the Apollo 13 mission, the LM environmental control system provided a habitable environment for about 83 hours (57:45 to 141:05 GET). Cabin temperature remained low due to low electrical power levels. This caused crew discomfort during much of this period, with cabin temperatures ranging between 49°F and 55 °F.
During this flight Haise developed a urinary tract infection and later kidney infections. These caused him to be in pain for most of the trip. Haise was slated to become the sixth human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 13 behind Lovell, who was to be fifth.
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.
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).
So, why haven't they sent humans back to the moon yet? The two primary causes are money and priorities. The race to put people on the moon was sparked in 1962 by US President John F. Kennedy's 'We Choose to Go to the Moon' address, in which he pledged that by the end of the decade, an American would walk on the moon'.
To date, only one country has succeeded in landing humans on the moon: the United States of America. As part of the Apollo space program, the United States has landed a total of 12 astronauts.
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.
Kranz, Lunney and Windler cheering after the successful splashdown of Apollo 13. The recovery team of US Navy Frogmen and sailors from the USS Iwo Jima recovered the astronauts and delivered them by helicopter to the deck of the carrier.
The Apollo 11 crew stated that their patch design did not have crew names added because the design incorporated the "for all mankind" theme. The Apollo 13 crew patch was dedicated to the mission focus on science, and incorporated the term "EX LUNA SCIENTIA" (From the Moon, Knowledge).
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).
One hour and 48 minutes after liftoff, Kerwin called up to Apollo 13, “And you are Go for TLI,” and at 2 hours and 35 minutes, the S-IVB's J-2 engine ignited for nearly 6 minutes to increase Apollo 13's velocity to 24,247 miles per hour, fast enough to escape Earth's gravity well and send the spacecraft and its crew ...
Lovell was selected as a potential astronaut candidate for Project Mercury but was turned down because of a temporary excess of a protein called bilirubin in his blood, which could have been indicative of a liver problem.
3.5 Apollo 13
During the second period, the Commander, Command Module Pilot, and Lunar Module Pilot slept 5, 6, and 9 hours, respectively. The third sleep period was scheduled for 61 hours, but the orygen tank incident at 56 hours precluded sleep by any of the crew until approximately 80 hours.
Within the service module were two tanks of liquid oxygen. Oxygen from these tanks was used not only for the astronauts to breathe, but to help run three fuel cells that provided electrical power to run the command ship's many systems.
"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.
Unable to land, the crew of Apollo 13 changed their course to rapidly slingshot around the Moon and return to Earth. Three days after the accident, the astronauts safely re-entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean.
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.
Emergency water and batteries were added to the Command Module, and another oxygen tank was added so that one would never go below half full. This third tank was set up so that it could be isolated from fuel cells and the other oxygen tanks if an emergency arose.