50th anniversary of Apollo 13

Itssoeasy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C3NAj4jCb0

Today Saturday April 11th marks fifty years of the moment the 363ft Saturn V containing the LM and CSM and the three man crew of commander Jim Lovell, LM pilot Fred Haise , and CM Jack Swigert lifted off the launch pad on what was meant to be what the public believed was a routine mission to the moon(this was bourne out by no TV network showing the TV broadcast prior to the explosion) and would turn out to be anything but routine when the greatest in flight crisis NASA had ever had to that point occurred by the flick of a switch from jack Swigert after a request from the CAPCOM to stir up the oxygen tanks to stop the oxygen in the tanks settling. Jack Swigert had initially been part of the back up crew but due to Charlie Duke being exposed to German measles by a friend of his son and therefore both prime and backup crews also and the original CM Ken Mattingly was dropped. He later flew on Apollo 16.

The Saturn V was slow to clear the tower due to it carrying more fuel than previous missions and then also the inboard engine(the middle one) unexpectedly cut out earlier than planned on the second stage so the remaining four J2 engines that made up the second stage or S-II burned longer to compensate for the shut down of the inboard due to pogo oscillation which was not an unknown issue with NASA launches. Apollo 13 achieved a near perfect parking orbit and TLI(trans lunar injection) occurred nearly two hours after orbit was reached.

Issues with the oxygen tank in the service module which had been dropped during testing many months before (Apollo 10) and exposed wiring had caused an explosion which threatened the lives of the astronauts and made the lunar landing attempt impossible due to mission rules stating the needed to be all working cells to land on the moon. That is an oversimplification of the issues around the tank and issues predating Apollo 13 but so as not to make this tribute really really too long.

The movie version depicts the moment of the explosion and its aftermath as panicked but when you read the transcript and listen to the audio of the moment it's very NASA like in its calmness at least outwardly which happened at 56 hours into the mission which in terms of distance is a long way from earth.

Jack swigert was the crew member to first alert Houston that there had been an issue of any kind when the said "okay, Houston we've had a problem" and not Jim Lovell.

While the mission did not land on the moon like apollos 11,12,14,15,16,and 17 it in some ways is more famous for the fact that NASA showed the best of its self during this mission and made the mission a "successful failure."

The lunar landing that never happened for me as a fan of the manned space flight is a very sad moment because it deprived one of the true legends of manned space flight in Jim Lovell of the perfect end to his space career.

The explosion and aborted lunar landing was only one of many issues faced by the crew. The explosion of the oxygen tanks located in the service module and because oxygen powered the fuel cells the command module had to be turned off which was not a scenario meant to happen during flight the crew had to use the lunar module as a lifeboat, something it was not in normal times meant to do.

The best option of doing a direct abort using the SPS on the service module wasn’t a runner(and shown why when pictures of the damaged SM were taken) so a free return trajectory of going around the moon and back to earth was decided during which Apollo 13 achieved the record of furthest spacecraft from earth because of the free return trajectory they took.

Apollo 13 after successfully turning back on the cold CM and after dealing with a carbon dioxide problem in the Lunar module and other issues including a tired and sick crew they achieved splashdown on April 17th, 1970 in the south Pacific Ocean.

Itssoeasy

https://apolloinrealtime.org

You can follow the mission in real time with this link.

Itssoeasy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-Cv5VBjH4M

I've never seen the two hours before the launch but here is is on YouTube now.