Less than a year after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon, the Apollo program had become so routine that people didn’t really pay attention to Apollo 13 when it launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, at 2:13 p.m. Media coverage was sparse, and so were the crowds in attendance.
“NASA was reminded again of waning interest in space exploration with a launch turnout of around 200,000 people,” Space.com recounts. “It was a crowd that paled in comparison to the 7 million who had come to see Apollo 11 liftoff almost a year earlier.”
All of that changed two days and a few hours later. Fifty-five hours into the mission, the crew of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert did a television broadcast that most television stations didn’t carry because they thought the mission was too routine and uninteresting. Shortly after the broadcast, astronaut Jack Lousma, who was serving as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for this phase of the mission, asked Swigert to stir the cryogenic oxygen tanks — and all hell broke loose.
From NASA’s Apollo 13 Flight Journal:
Lousma: 13, we’ve got one more item for you, when you get a chance. We’d like you to stir up your cryo tanks. In addition, I have shaft and trunnion… [Pause.]
Swigert: Okay.
Lousma: …for looking at the Comet Bennett, if you need it.
Swigert: Okay. Stand by.
[long comm break, then the crew heard what Lovell later referred to as a “dull but definite bang”]
Swigert: Okay, Houston…
Lovell: …Houston…
Swigert: …we’ve had a problem here. [Pause.]
[Bill] Fenner (GUIDO [Guidance]): FLIGHT, GUIDANCE.
[Gene] Kranz (FLIGHT [Flight Director]): Go GUIDANCE.
Lousma: This is Houston. Say again, please.
Lovell: [Garble.] Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.
Mission Control wasn’t sure if the spacecraft was experiencing technical issues or if there was a false alarm taking place, but soon people on the ground and the crew in space went into scramble mode. The mission changed from getting Lovell and Haise to the lunar surface to getting all three men home safely. And there were no guarantees.
It was a race against the clock. Because the command and service module (CSM) had one fuel cell that was necessary for reentry, the three astronauts moved into the lunar module (LM), which became their lifeboat. In a conference room at Johnson Spaceflight Center in Houston, NASA technicians debated whether to have the astronauts turn around where they were or continue onto the moon, use its gravity to slingshot around it, and return home the way they came. The latter option was the final decision.
If you’ve seen the film “Apollo 13,” which is my all-time favorite movie and celebrates the 30th anniversary of its debut this year, you’re aware of the constant contingencies that arose on the doomed mission, the steely determination of mission control and the astronauts, and the overwhelming sense of worry that permeated the astronauts’ return home. (Spoiler alert: they all survived.)
Related: What Will NASA Look Like Under a Second Trump Administration?
The culprit for the explosion was one of the oxygen tanks that CAPCOM had Swigert stir. From the Apollo 13 Flight Journal:
When the tank was being built, an important instruction did not reach a company who was supplying thermostatic switches to the tank’s subcontractor. Although the spacecraft worked on 28V DC, the ground systems at the launch pad were changed to work on 65V DC. This change to 65V occurred during Apollo’s development and the word had gone out to ensure that all systems could tolerate this higher voltage. However, the supplier of the thermostatic switches had missed this change. Therefore, when their switches had been called upon to operate and interrupt the power to the heaters, thereby protecting the tank after the ground test, the devices had instead welded themselves shut due to the higher operating voltage. As a result, the heaters within the tank continued to operate, raising its internal temperature to around 500°C (1,000°F). The intense head rendered the electrical insulation within the tank cracked and brittle.
The astronauts and mission control reflected on the mission five years ago for the 50th anniversary. Lovell told People Magazine that the mission “was plagued by bad omens and bad luck from the very beginning.” Jokes about the designation Apollo 13 and the fact that part of the mission fell on April 13 abounded.
Haise said that despite the danger of the mission, the overwhelming thought for him was that he wouldn’t get to walk on the moon.
“I was just sick to my stomach with disappointment,” he told People.
“Everybody seemed to be moving in the right directions without being directed,” Kranz said of the quick work Mission Control did in finding solutions. He added, “Everybody had a sense of what needed to be done.”
When the film came out in 1995, everybody expected director Ron Howard and the scriptwriters to take some dramatic license, but it still surprised the astronauts.
“They added some emotional drama to the film. I guess we weren’t interesting enough,” Haise told People in 1995. One of the factors in the movie that caught him off guard was the profanity.
“I went over all the air-to-ground transcripts. We never said a curse word for the entire flight,” he said. “None of us were so pure that we wouldn’t have cursed. We just didn’t.”
Maybe you’ll want to watch “Apollo 13” sometime this weekend. I’m hoping to even though I have some out-of-town family on their way here. Here’s a video of the launch, which is another fascinating way to remember this once-in-a-lifetime mission:
It’s important to those who will stand up for truth like all of the talented writers here at PJ Media. One way you can do that is by becoming a VIP member. PJ Media VIPs get deeper dives into important issues as well as podcasts, commenting capability, and an ad-free experience.
A PJ Media VIP membership is a tremendous value on its own, but you can use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off!
