The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

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lunar environment. Conrad inadvertently carried a
Playboy photo to the Moon; it had been planted by a
NASA employee and Conrad came across it unexpectedly
on the lunar surface while flipping through
his mission checklist. For the first time, lunar dust
tracked into the LM proved to be a problem. Since the
dust became weightless after liftoff from the Moon,
the astronauts had trouble breathing without their helmets.
For the first time, the LM was fired back toward
the Moon after its occupants transferred to the CSM.
Intrepid slammed into the Moon at more than 8,000
km/hr with a force equivalent to an explosion of 9,000
kg of TNT. The resulting artificial moonquake registered
on the seismometer that the astronauts had left
on the surface, providing valuable data on the Moon’s
internal makeup. Some lunar dust found its way into
the CSM, requiring the astronauts to clean air filter
screens every few hours. The splashdown, at 15g, was
the hardest ocean landing ever recorded—enough to
jar a 16-mm camera from its mounting and hit Al
Bean on the head. 122
Apollo 13
Crew
Commander: James Lovell Jr.
LM pilot: Fred Haise
CM pilot: John Swigert
Call signs
CM: Odyssey
LM: Aquarius
For the superstitious: Apollo 13 was launched on
schedule at 13:13 CST (Houston time), April 11,
1970. On April 13, while en route to the moon, an
oxygen tank in the SM exploded. The crew got home
safely thanks to the consumables and propulsion system
of the LM and the ingenuity of ground controllers
in improvising LM lifeboat procedures. The
S-IVB stage that boosted the mission into translunar
trajectory was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center
on June 13, 1969—a Friday. Swigert replaced Thomas
Mattingly as CM pilot after Mattingly contracted
measles (the only preflight substitution of this kind in
the history of the American space program). Following
liftoff, the second stage S-II booster’s center
engine cut off 132 seconds early. To compensate, the
four remaining S-II engines burned an extra 34 seconds,
and the S-IVB third stage burned an extra 9 sec-
onds. The flight continued according to plan. For the
first time, the S-IVB third stage was fired on a lunar
trajectory following spacecraft separation and struck
the Moon so that the resulting moonquake could be
measured, at a point about 137 km from the seismometer
planted by the Apollo 12 astronauts. Unfortunately,
the S-IVB would be the only part of Apollo
13 to reach the lunar surface. About 56 hours after
liftoff and more than halfway to the Moon, a spark
and resulting fire ruptured the Number Two Oxygen
Tank in the SM, causing a violent explosion. This
resulted in the loss of all fuel-cell-generated electricity
and led to many other complications, including a
complete loss of oxygen and water supply from the
CSM. The mission was immediately aborted and all
efforts shifted to the safe return of the crew. The CSM
was powered down, and the crew moved to the LM
for the bulk of the return flight. Not wishing to risk
complicated maneuvers to turn the spacecraft around,
NASA directed Apollo 13 to proceed around the
Moon. Virtually all spacecraft systems were shut down
to conserve power. The crew squeezed into the LM,
which was designed to support two astronauts for
about 50 hours but now needed to support all three
astronauts for four days. The crew endured temperatures
at or below freezing for the bulk of the return
flight as well as other hardships, including water
rationed at 170 g per astronaut per day. After circling
the Moon once, the LM descent engine was fired
twice to establish a fast return path. Nearing Earth,
Swigert returned to the CSM to power up the craft
using onboard batteries. Engineers were not certain
that power could be restored due to low temperatures
during the flight; however, sufficient power was
restored without difficulty. Swigert jettisoned the SM
while Lovell and Haise remained aboard the LM. Following
jettison, the crew viewed and took dramatic
pictures of the explosion’s aftermath: an entire side of
the SM had been blown out. Eventually, Lovell and
Haise joined Swigert on the CM. The LM, which had
successfully served as a lifeboat, was jettisoned, and
the CM reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Under such
circumstances, no one knew if the CM would come in
at the proper angle to avoid burning up in or skipping
off the atmosphere. As in all previous American
manned spaceflights, there was a communications
blackout of several minutes during reentry. Then, to
the cheers of an anxious world, Apollo 13 splashed
down within sight of the recovery team and the crew
61, 123, 168
were rescued about one hour later.