The Failure Of Apollo 13 Exploration In Space

Apollo 13: Exploration in Space
The Apollo 13 mission was supposed to be a mission to the moon, but when an oxygen tank exploded it made them fight to survive. Space exploration has been important for years, but when an oxygen tank exploded they needed to figure out a new way to get back to Earth. Three things people should know about the Apollo 13 mission was what the mission was supposed to be about, what went wrong on the mission, and how they got back.
The Apollo 13 mission was going to be the third mission to the moon, but the mission was aborted due to a ruptured oxygen tank. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA is an United States government agency responsible for science and technology related to space. …show more content…
The spacecraft was made of some of the components of the Apollo landing missions. The people on board the space vehicle was James Lovell, Jr, was the commander. Lovell was the world’s most traveled astronaut. and was interested in space ever since he was a teenager. John Swigert, Jr. was the command module pilot, and Fred Haise, Jr. was the module pilot. They were aiming for the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. The astronauts were going to explore the Imbrium Basin and make geological tests. However, the Apollo 13 failed to get there. Later the Apollo 14 mission landed successfully in the Imbrium Basin(Apollo 13 Mission).
The liftoff went well; however, things were about to get a lot worse. There were problems even before the spacecraft was launched. The astronaut, Thomas Mattingly, had to be replaced because he had been exposed to the German measles. Mattingly was replaced by John Swigert to go on the space exploration(Was Apollo 13 mission Jinxed 1). Only five minutes after liftoff the crew felt a small vibration. The vibration was the center engine shutting down two minutes before it was supposed to. This caused the other four engines to burn longer. The first two days it looked like it was going to …show more content…
NASA engineer, Jerry Woodfill, believes that the oxygen tank could not have exploded at a better time. He thinks that any time later or earlier in the mission would have prevented them from getting home. If the explosion would have happened earlier, they would not have had enough power, water, or oxygen to survive. If it had happened much later, they would not have been able to use the lunar landing as a lifeboat when they landed in the ocean. Also, they would not have been able to go around the moon to head back to Earth. The lunar landing was crucial as a lifeboat when they had made it back to Earth and landed in the ocean (Universe Today 1). The ground computed a thirty-five second five hours after the explosion. When they approached the moon they computed another blast five minutes long to get them headed back towards home. They tried to use the Alignment Optical Telescope to find a good navigational star, and Then used an onboard computer to get their alignment. A swarm of debris from the explosion made it impossible to read stars. They decided to use the sun as an alignment star which would cut the return flight to about 142 hours (NASA Apollo mission Apollo 13). Mission Control had to quickly come up with ways to save the crew. Four hours before they landed on Earth, they shed the service module. Three hours later, the crew left the Lunar Module Aquarius and landed in the Pacific Ocean near

Show More

Space Explorations Essay

Lyndon Baines Johnson

The Failure Of Apollo 13 Exploration In Space

Related Documents: The Failure Of Apollo 13 Exploration In Space

Space Explorations Essay

Lyndon Baines Johnson