Apollo 13

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Apollo XIII "A successful Failure" was what NASA called the tragedy that took place on Apollo 13. "Houston we have a problem" became one of the world's most famous quotes in United States history, and more then thirty years later it became a blockbuster smash in the movie theaters, the movie was so good that it used all the actual facts from the real Apollo 13 mission.

On April 11, 1970 at 1:13pm, "Lucky 13" was launched from Kennedy Space Center, On board the Command Module Odyssey were three astronauts, commander Jim Lovell, lunar module pilot Fred Haise and command module pilot Jack Swigert. At 9 o'clock in the evening on April 13, Apollo 13 was 205,000 miles outbound from Earth. The crew had just finished the television broadcast, which unknown to them, no one outside NASA was watching. Jim Swigert turned on a fan in an oxygen tank.

It was a purely toutine technical exercise intended to stir the chilled liqued in the cryotanks to stop cold spots forming. He did it a hundred times in training, but this time it would be different. Just as Swigert flicked the switch, a bang rang out and it make the command module shake and for a few minutes it was complete quiet. After the bang Jim Lovell looked out the left side window and saw a mist coming from the command module, it was oxygen the command module was bleeding to death.

The serious nature of the emergency was starkly evident to the crew and Mission Control. Lovell and his crew mates were more then 205,000 miles out in space with a dead service module, including its main engine. The explosion had wiped out the CSM main supply of life sustaining oxygen and power. The command module's 10 hours of...