The original crew of Apollo 13 was James A. Lovell, Thomas K. Mattingly II, and Fred W. Haise. Forty-eight hours before takeoff, Mattingly was exposed to the German measles by LM pilot Charlie Duke, having to be replaced by Jack Swigert. The entire crew had previous flight experience before they boarded Apollo 13. Lovell, however, was the most qualified out of the two other astronauts; he was the world’s most traveled astronaut at the time. He had completed three missions and had 572 hours of flight experience. Lovell received a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1952 and was chosen with the second group of astronauts in 1962. He participated in Apollo 8, the first mission to circle the moon, and flew two Gemini missions-including a 14-day endurance run (Apollo 13: Facts About NASA’s Near-Disaster).”
Fred Haise was a journalist turned Naval Aviator. He was recognized as a specialist on the Lunar Module, having spent fourteen months at Grumman building the space craft. Haise received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1959 and was chosen in the fifth group of astronauts in 1966.” He was back-up lunar pilot for Apollo 8 and Apollo 11, lunar module pilot for Apollo 13, and back-up commander for Apollo16(Apollo13: Facts About NASA’s Near-Disaster).”
First-time flyer Jack Swigert received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1953, a Master’s of Science in Aerospace in 1965, and a Master’s of Science in Business Administration in 1967. He was chosen in the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. “He was scheduled to be back-up command module pilot for Apollo 13 but was moved to the prime crew 48 hours before the launch (Apollo13: Facts About NASA’s Near-Disaster).”
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... service module no.4 cover was blown off in the process as well. All oxygen was lost within about three hours, along with loss of water, electrical power, and use of the propulsion system. During pre-flight testing, tank no.2 was having problems and would not empty correctly, probably due to the damaged fill line. “Scientists believe the switches may have welded shut, allowing the temperature inside the tank to get over 1000 degrees F. with the service module damaged beyond repair, the only source of power was the lunar module. The team had to preserve the resources of the command module for reentry into earth
As soon as it became apparent that the mission had to be aborted, the craft had been maneuvered back to free-return; the craft would loop around the moon and return back to earth. However, several changes were required to make the fastest, safest trip possible.
The Space Race was a 20th century competition between the soviet union And the United States for supremacy in spaceflight ability. The launch date for apollo 13 was originally in March of 1970 but later the launch date switched to april. During one of the countdown demonstrations the Kennedy Space Center encountered problems with the oxygen tanks in the service module. When the apollo 13 mission took off their main goal was to land in the Fra Mauro area on the moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during the flight and the crew were forced to orbit the moon and return to earth without landing. The Apollo 13 mission was launched on April 11th in the year 1970. For the first few days of the flight the crew ran into a couple minor accidents, but Apollo 13 was looking like the smoothest flight of the program. They aborted the mission after 56 hours of flight due to an explosion in the oxygen tanks. “At 5 ½ minutes after liftoff John Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell felt a little vibration then the center engine of the S-II stage shut down two minutes early. This caused the remaining 4 engines to burn 34 seconds longer than planned, and the S-IVB third stage had to burn nine seconds longer to put Apollo 13 in orbit.” (nasa.gov) At 55 hours and 46 minutes the crew was finishing a live tv broadcast showing how well they were doing and how they comfortably lived.
...ause it was the mission that NASA was able to put the first man up onto the moon. Neil Armstrong was the pilot of the Apollo 11 flight. There was a special shuttle that was attached to the spaceship; it was called the Eagle. The Eagle was designed to transport some crew members down to the moon. Armstrong was responsible for driving and landing the shuttle safely down to the moon. While on his way down to the moon, Armstrong realized that he was starting to run out of fuel. Thankfully, Armstrong did have enough to land on the moon and make it back up to the spaceship. When the Eagle was leaving the spaceship for the first time up in space, it wasn't completely depressurized so there was something like a gas bubble come from the shuttle as it was on its way to the moon. The gas bubble moved the shuttle off course and the Eagle actually landed four miles off course.
The Launch of Apollo 13 took place on the 11 April 1970, it consisted of a crew, James A. Lovell, JR which was a commander, John L. Swigert, Jr., which was a command module pilot and Fred W. Haise, Jr., who was a Lunar module pilot. It appears that all test modules were successfully in preparation for the lau...
Shortly after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed and walked successfully on the Moon for the first time in history, another lunar mission almost ended in disaster without the valor and strong leadership it took to get three men back to Earth. Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks), Jack Swiggert (played by Kevin Bacon), and Fred Haise (played by Bill Paxton) blasted off on the Apollo 13 mission on April 11, 1970, in trying to collect samples from the surface of the Moon and survey it. Swiggert took the place of the more experienced Ken Mattingly (played by Gary Sinese) since Mattingly was the only one not immune to the measles after one of the other astronauts had contracted it. The flight surgeon on the trip ordered him to remain aground to keep both himself and the crew healthy during the flight.
Sambaluk, PhD, Micholas Michael. "John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon." Air & Space Power Journal 27.5 (2013): 156-58. Print.
Apollo 13 was a mission that some may grow to learn was a failure; It was in fact the complete opposite. Space entry was improved immensely, with the efforts and struggles gained from previous missions. In addition, one of the victims of this mission, Jim Lovell, “believed it was a success. Everyone was tested on their ability to work together and that is how Apollo 13 succeeded” (Anastasio 90). Future space entry missions would not have been as successful as they are without previous missions bettering the space program.
How would you feel if you were on the Apollo 13 ship during the explosion? It would be pretty scary right. They faced many problems. Apollo 13 was a successful failure because it was a mission to the moon, they overcame many challenges, and surviving the free fall to Earth.
Little did anyone know or expect this would be the most rewarding mission since 1961. Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins left from the Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida on July 16,1969. Michael Collins was the command module pilot, Neil Armstrong was the mission commander, and Buzz Aldrin was the lunar module pilot. The Apollo 11 crew traveled 240,000 miles in just 72 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19,1696. Collins detached for the lunar module The mission was already ahead of schedule with Americans waiting to see what was going to happen next for their country. At 10:39 p.m., Armstrong, being televised, opened the hatch of the lunar module, and three minutes later Armstrong made history by putting his left foot of the moon’s powdery surface. When Armstrong stepped down from the last step from the spacecraft, all of America jumped for excitement and joy. Aldrin soon joined Armstrong 19 minutes later, and together they took photographs, then planted the United States flag. President Nixon was so very blessed and honored that he was able to witness America make history on July 24, 1969 along with all of the other Americans. Returning back to Earth
helped to calculate the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon. In 1970,
Astronaut Jim Lovell sums up the teamwork present in Apollo 13 by saying “I sometimes find myself looking up at the moon…thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home” (Apollo 13). From their expertise to their collaboration with astronaut Ken Mattingly, mission control plays a vital role in the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew, who could have lost their lives in space had it not been for
"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" (Kennedy). When John F. Kennedy said these famous words, he set the stage for one of the greatest accomplishments the United States of America has ever made. Over the course of that decade, the space race would be in full swing; a universal goal would unite the nation to achieve the dream of sending a man to the moon and safely back to earth. Through human determination, the United States made enough scientific breakthroughs to alter events back on planet earth. In one decade, this nation was able to prove that the sky is no longer the limit. How was the United States able to effectively accomplish such a colossal task, and what was the global significance at the time?
The Apollo 13 was not only one of Nasa’s most famous missions, but one of its most perilous missions of all. The mission and it’s story got plenty of well deserved attention. From museum exhibits to having it’s very own movie the mission was very well publicized. The mission’s crew members have since been researched and gotten tons of recognition for the many challenges they faced. It was an immensely dangerous and remarkable story.There were three very brave men included in the Apollo 13 mission crew.
While clearly the scientific advances in space exploration were the most obvious successes of the Apollo program, some historians like NASA’s Roger D. Launius report that perhaps the most important legacy of the program was in the way so many people had to come together to manage such a gigantic and important project. This had never been done before and many think it could never be replicated again.
On April 13, 1970, NASA's Mission Control heard the five words that no control center ever wants to hear: "We've got a problem here." Jack Swigert, an astronaut aboard the Apollo 13 aircraft, reported the problem of broken down oxygen tanks to the Houston Control Center, less than two days after its takeoff on April 11th. Those at the Control Center in Houston were unsure what had happened to the spacecraft, but knew that some sort of explosion had occurred. This so-called explosion sent Apollo 13 spinning away from the Earth at 2,000 miles per hour, 75 percent of the way to the moon. In order to get the astronauts back to the Earth's atmosphere would be to utilize the moon's gravitational pull and send them back towards home, like a slingshot. However, this procedure would require three days, and this demanded more oxygen and electricity than the crew had available to them. Eugene "Gene" Kranz, head of this flight mission, although looking on in horror, began thinking of solutions to the problem immediately after the Controls were aware of the problem on board. Knowing that the options of refueling the spacecraft with oxygen or retrieve the astronauts himself, he needed to think of a strategy for a safe return. In this sense, if his solution fails, it could result in the biggest catastrophe in NASA history.