Apollo 13 Essay example

Apollo 13 was to be the third mission sent from the Apollo Project to land on the Moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks caused the spacecraft to become crippled during the flight and the crew were forced to orbit the Moon and return to the Earth without landing. The Apollo 13 mission was launched on Saturday afternoon, April 11, 1970 from launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. The space prime crew consisted of trained experts Commander James A. Lovell Jr., Command module pilot Ken Mattingly and Lunar module pilot Fred W. Haise Jr. There was also three backup crew members named John W. Young, John L. Swigert Jr. and Charles M. Duke. This crew was ready to step in if for any reason something were to happen to any of the main

A few days later Lovell and his crew take off on the Apollo 13 mission. At first all is well until the second oxygen tank explodes, causing many problems for the crew; the most potent problem being that the crew was losing oxygen fast. Luckily, due to much ingenuity by the crew and mission control, the crew is able to arrive safely to earth without the deaths of any astronauts.

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

Apollo 13 mission to the moon was suddenly derailed, when one of the three oxygen tanks exploded, and another failing simply as collateral damage from the explosion, therefore leaving one oxygen tank for the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13. The astronauts included mission commander Jim Lovell, lunar module pilot Fred Haise and command module pilot Jack Swigert (the back-up pilot for Ken Mattingly) found themselves rotating the moon in a small confined space that was designed for only two

The space crew was scared not knowing what to do or what would happen, their lives were at risk. They didn’t now the possibilities or the outcomes, as they sat in the rocket waiting to see what would happen, while they still went spinning around the moon.

When the Apollo 13´s team is about two thirds of the way to the moon their oxygen tank one explodes with the second one with only little oxygen left in it. The team has to get home safely with little time and resources. The Apollo 13 team decided to still go to the moon, or at least go into the atmosphere to slingshot them back to Earth. The team safely made it back home by splashing into the Pacific next to Samoa. The Apollo 13 team trusted in each other and successfully made it back to

Neil Armstrong, the captain of the mission, started off as a test pilot, until he was recruited as a backup to the Gemini 5 mission. In 1966, Armstrong served as the command pilot for the Gemini 8 mission; this gave him confidence and allowed him to be part of the Apollo 11 mission. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin in the same way was a test pilot, but after the deaths in the Gemini mission crew he was promoted to backup, and eventually Apollo 11. Michael Collins, who remained in orbit around the moon in a separate aircraft during the moon walk, said during an interview, that he did not have the best seat on the mission and was always worrying about his counterparts during the moonwalk. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the surface for around two and a half hours and collected 47 pounds of material for analysis. Following that mission, many other flights were taken to the learn more about the composition, age, and most

They had to figure out what altitude would burn the LM descent engine to give a fast route home. The team had to evaluate if there were plenty of consumables to get home. The LM (Lunar Module) could only hold for 45 hours they had to make it last for 90 hours. At this point oxygen was not an issue. The LM descent tank was more than enough to keep them breathing for a while.

At this point, there was enough oxygen in the second system to get the astronauts home safely, but Lovell, one of the astronauts, noticed that the psi (pounds per square inch) level on the pressure gauge for the second system was falling as well. It should normally register at 860, now it was only a 300, only 53 minutes after the initial explosion. At this pace, the spacecraft would expend all of its oxygen and electricity between midnight and 3 AM. This was not giving the Control Center a lot of time.

from an explosion in the oxygen tanks due to some faulty wiring that cut the spacecraft’s

The engineering problems made the astronauts and mission control irritable, stressed, and angry. As shown in the movie, the astronauts argued with each other for issues that all came from engineering problems. They were scared for their well being, and lashed out at each other. Had their oxygen tanks been functional, this would not have happened. Also, because they were forced to abort the mission, the scientists at mission control were forced to make plans to get them home safely with gravity and newton’s different laws. Once again, had these engineering issues not occurred, everyone would be fine, and the astronauts would have walked on the

The Apollo 13 crew needed more oxygen and power to get back to Earth safely. To get these needed supplies NASA developed possible solutions, like powering up the LEM. They also need to find a way to equalize the CO2 in the Aquarius. As their solution, they were going to ask the Apollo 13 crew to build a tube that could connect to the vent so that it would equalize the CO2, and that the crew needs to power up the LEM and computer with the leftover power from the batteries. To build a tube that the crew could make, the people at NASA worked together and used only the supplies on the Aquarius to make it. The people needed to

The first critical event of the film gives the Apollo 13 astronauts their mission. Alan

Then it came time for the Apollo missions. Eleven manned launches into space, 6 of which landing on the moon, carried man farther than ever before. Apollo 1 was scheduled to be the first in the series. Just 4 days before the launch, there was a problem. During a test flight, a fire broke out inside the sealed capsule from faulty wiring. The fire suffocated the 3 astronauts inside. NASA launched a full investigation (Aldrin 3). “It exposed deep flaws in our capsules and procedures”, said Gene Kranz, the retired chief flight director at NASA during the Gemini and Apollo missions (When).

Apollo 13 is a 1995 American space adventure film directed by Ron Howard. The film depicts astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise aboard Apollo 13 for America 's third Moon landing mission. En route, an on-board explosion deprives their spacecraft of most of its oxygen supply and electric power, forcing NASA 's flight controllers to abort the Moon landing, and turning the mission into a struggle to get the three men home safely.