edgar-mitchell

50
The Way of the Explorer
floated across the room. This wasn’t erroneous information flickering
through the maze of electronics. No, the data was accurate, and something
had gone terribly wrong.
Within a few minutes we had identified the problem as an explosion of
some sort in the service module. We all knew just how serious this was. Jim
Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise might not make it back alive. This
was a very real possibility. Originally, they were headed for a rugged region
of the moon called Fra Mauro, but a lunar landing was now a lost
dream. The most we could hope for was getting them home before they
depleted something they couldn’t live without.
The training you have absorbed as a test pilot through the years automatically
locks you into a peculiar pattern of thought and behavior during
emergencies. You lose track of time. All that is on your mind is a series of
the simplest declarative statements and questions you can possibly put to
yourself. The craft is in trouble. What is the first thing to be done The
second The third What will it take to solve this one miniscule problem
No hand-wringing, no traces of panic. Silent prayers intersperse cool, even
mental activity. The world becomes but an intellectual exercise; a friend’s
life is not at stake. Or so it seems in the vacuum of time. As I watched the
telemetry appear on the screen I knew Al, Stu, and I had been spared this
horrible fate. The thought lingered in a shadowy apse at the back of my
mind. What lay at the front for the next four days was how we were going
to manipulate the machinery. Three lives depended on just how well and
how quickly all of us on the ground team could troubleshoot and solve a
thousand minuscule problems.
Perhaps Stu, Al, and I prayed a little more fervently, as we knew just
how easily it could have been us up there on the verge of freezing or
expiring from carbon dioxide poisoning in a mortally wounded machine,
headed into deep space at thousands of miles per hour. The stack of metal
would become their sarcophagus, unless we could transform the lunar
module Aquarius into a combination of lifeboat and auxiliary engine, and
also keep the command module, Odyssey, alive to perform the reentry
maneuver into the Earth’s atmosphere. The crew was 200,000 miles from
home when the explosion occurred, and it was clear they would have to
continue around the moon before returning. In space you cannot simply
stop and turn around.
The spacecraft was not on what is called a “free return trajectory,”
which meant that a burn was required before going behind the moon in
order to achieve a path that would properly intercept Earth three days
later. However, it was evident that electrical power to control the SPS
(Service Propulsion System) main engine had been damaged in the accident
and couldn’t be used safely, if at all. If the burn wasn’t executed