“Ok, Houston we’ve had a problem here”. 13th April 1970. Jim Lovell (together with Jack Sweigert and Fred Haise) talks to Houston about a series of problems on the Odissey, the spacecraft taking him and his colleagues straight to the Moon. Few seconds before an explosion happened on board, but nobody knows about it. Just few moments and Lovell realize what happened: they’re losing oxygen in the space! From here, an incredible series of problems, all resolved, will affect the mission:
- the 3 astronauts re-entered to Earth living 7 days in the LEM, a vehicle projected to landing on the Moon, boarding only 2 astronauts instead of three.
- Energy problem: they had to switch off all instruments, even during the trajectory corrections (made by hand and with only one chance to get them right)
- LEM Engine: projected for taking off the Lunar soil once, sure not to correct trajectory twice (they were very lucky!)
- Oxygen in LEM: Co2 filters had squared section and CSM filters were round! They had to built an handmade filter to avoid the increase of Co2 in LEM environment.
- Heat shield: once unhooked the CSM, they realized about the explosion causing abortion of their mission and also realized it get until the border of heat shield (in this case, you just can do one simple thing: pray!)
- A typhoon in the landing point in the Pacific Ocean
- The explosive parachutes bolts: after 4 days at -200°C they could have been frozen
…and many more. But, as Gene Krantz said in that tragic moments, “Failure is not an option!”. Gene Krantz was the Chairman of the Mission Control in Houston. His decisions were decisive for the fate of the Apollo 13 mission (and other Apollo mission obviously) and for its crew.
What about the Guinness World Record? Well, not for all these problems, but because they have reached the maximum distance by Earth for a human crew: 400.171 km
Resources
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3J1AO9z0tA
