April 13: Apollo 13

On this date in 1970, Apollo 13 ran into trouble. Here are ten facts about the ill-fated mission:

1. Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. Its original mission was to was to explore the Fra Mauro formation, a task later completed by Apollo 14.
2. The mission launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
3. Prior to launch, there had been a considerable amount of chopping and changing regarding the crew. NASA's system of deciding well in advance who went on which mission originally had the crew down as L. Gordon Cooper, Jr (Commander); Donn F. Eisele (Command Module Pilot); and Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot), because they had been the backup crew for Apollo 10. However, this particular crew had only been included as backups because there weren't enough astronauts. Cooper had a "lax attitude towards training" and Eisele had been having an affair - so they were out of favour and a different crew was suggested: Alan B. Shepard, Jr (Commander); Stuart A. Roosa (Command Module Pilot); Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot). However, Shepherd had recently had ear surgery and wouldn't have had enough time to train after his recovery, so this crew was rejected as well.
4. The final choice was James A. Lovell as commander, Fred W. Haise as Lunar Module Pilot and Ken Mattingly as command module pilot. Even so, there was one more change before launch. One of Mattingly's kids had German measles and since Mattingly had never had the disease, and didn't have immunity, he was replaced by Jack Swigert. Lovell disagreed with the decision. Mattingly never did contract German measles.
5. What went wrong? Two days into the mission, 200,000 miles from Earth, an Oxygen tank exploded on the command module, Odyssey.
6. James Lovell never actually uttered the words "Houston we have a problem". It was Hollywood artistic licence in the film when Tom Hanks said it. It was Swigert who reported the problem and he actually said, "Houston, we've had a problem."
7. In order for the astronauts to survive, they aborted the landing on the moon and used the lunar module, Aquarius, as a lifeboat. There were backup oxygen tanks so oxygen supply was less of a problem than shortages of Water and power. The astronauts and ground control between them had to come up with a way to get rid of carbon dioxide by linking incompatible cannisters together with a suit hose. The resulting device was nicknamed "the mailbox."
8. Aquarius couldn't bring them all the way home, however, as it didn't have enough heat shields, so for re-entry, the astronauts returned to the command module and jettisoned it.
9. Lovell referred to the mission as "a successful failure". They didn't get to the moon, but it did show how astronauts and ground crew could remain calm and co-operate to solve problems in a highly stressful situation. The mission also achieved a record. Since Apollo 13 needed to swing by the moon before returning home, passing the far side of the Moon at an altitude of 254 kilometers (137 nautical miles) above the lunar surface, and 400,171 km (248,655 mi) from Earth, they hold the record for the farthest humans have ever travelled from Earth.
10. The three astronauts returned home safely on April 17 and were picked up by the recovery ship, USS Iwo Jima. Aside from having lost weight and one astronaut having a kidney infection caused by water rationing, they were all in good condition.