Apollo 13 Research Paper

However, at 55hrs, 54mins and 53secs when the crew was 200,000 miles from Earth and closing in on the moon, mission controller Sy Liebergot saw a low-pressure warning signal on a hydrogen tank in Odyssey. The signal could have shown a problem, or could have indicated the hydrogen just needed to be resettled by heating and fanning the gas inside the tank. Swigert flipped the switch for the routine procedure. However when flipping the switch one of the oxygen tanks in the service module exploded. The explosion caused one of the spacecraft panels to rip off and damaged the fuel tanks killing the crew’s oxygen supply and the spacecraft then began to lose power. The crew notified Mission Control, with Swigert’s famous phrase, "Houston, we 've had a problem…”. Luckily the Apollo spacecraft was made up of two independent spacecrafts joined by a tunnel the main spacecraft named Odyssey and the lunar model named Aquarius.

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.

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.

On the Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” This event was a significant point in history for space exploration since he was the first person to walk on the moon. From the success of the Apollo 11 mission, future astronauts will explore Mars and I want to take part in the excursion to the Red Planet. The very moment I became enthralled by outer space was when I received a large hardback book about the solar system when I was four years old. From that point on I have obtained knowledge about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the exploration to Mars. One of the several occurrences in my life that formulated my fondness of space was spending time at night

Apollo 11 was a national goal set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961. Apollo 11 is the goal to perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth. Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969 at 9:32 am. Apollo 11 took off with astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. The commander of the mission was, 38-year-old civilian research pilot, Neil Armstrong.

The crew spent most of their free time and slept in the Odyssey. The three module parts that made up the Apollo spacecraft were the command module, service module, and the lunar module. The first part of the spacecraft was the command module and it was the main control section and was where the crew stayed most of the time aboard. John Swigert was the pilot and the man in charge of the command module. The second part was the service module and was used for the driving and support system. The third and final part of the Apollo spacecraft was the lunar module, it was the landing part of the craft, and it took two members of the crew to run. Fred Haise was the pilot of the lunar module, James Lovell spent most of his time in the lunar module alongside Fred Haise. (Grinter Kay) In 1962, the flight mode, and the lunar orbit rendezvous was selected for the Apollo spacecraft. After the failure of Apollo 13, the spacecraft was worked on, and had some changes happen to the spacecraft. The few changes added to the spacecraft were better wiring and an extra tank added on for future success of the

Apollo 13 was the 7th mission in the American Apollo Space Program and launched on April 11, 1970. Apollo 13 was the third mission that had planned to land on the moon and its location was in the Fra Mauro crater. However, two days into the flight, an oxygen tank exploded forcing the crew to orbit the moon without landing and return to earth.

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

BOOM, the missile hit. The shrapnel goes every where, pieces of the space ship flow every where. The shrapnel was sorted through. No survivors of the crew.

I had never heard people be happier to be cursed at. We performed a diagnostic and found out that the tank was not sealed properly and after two days of building pressure it exploded and it caused a short circuit that made the whole ship think it was dying. Luckily we still had enough water to complete the mission.

On July 20th, 1969, the United States made History for not only America but the World with the first men ever to step foot on the moon's surface. The United States had been on a racetrack with the Soviet Union to achieve new records of space travel. The objective that was set by John F. Kenedy almost a decade before had come true. John F. Kennedy's official words were as follow, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” The simple words were the force that drove the first men to step foot on the moon to be remembered forever ("Apollo 11.").

The movie, Apollo 13, is a true life story about NASA’s third mission to the moon in1970 that almost left three astronauts stranded in space. On the third day of the mission, an oxygen tank exploded during routine maintenance of the oxygen supply which resulted in three significant problems for the crew: a dissipating oxygen supply, reduced power on board and a damaged air filtering system, leaving the men susceptible to carbon dioxide poisoning. The combined efforts of the crew of the space craft and Mission Control, thousands of miles away in Houston Texas, was harnessed and directed on returning the stranded astronauts home safely. In the process, the crew and Mission Control staff encountered a series of dangers, each one requiring

with all our might we held onto what hope we had, for giving up meant the end of us. the very cutting edge science that brought us here was going to save our asses. With navigation systems down, the only safe way was up, but the main problem is our space craft was damaged during the landing.

After the No. 2 oxygen tank exploded, the three now stranded astronauts moved on to the new task at hand: getting back home from lunar orbit with the minimal resources and whole new procedures drawn out in a matter of hours. New burdens made this improvised trip home more perilous, including the now out of commission CM Aquarius that was dead weight and draining overall power. To prevent this, only minimal systems needed to be turned off to stop the leak and keep the spacecraft moving. Depending now on lunar module Odyssey would be a close call since “The LM was built for only a 45-hour lifetime and it needed to be stretch to 90”1, and left them depending on the minimal consumables left.

NASA launched the Apollo 13 spacecraft on April 11, 1970. It never landed on the moon because an oxygen tank exploded two days into the trip, affecting the crews' oxygen supply. The crew had to transfer into the Lunar Module (LM) to stay alive. Unfortunately, the LM was never designed to house more than 2 astronauts, and was designed to land on the moon. The astronauts encountered a build-up of carbon dioxide in the Lunar Module. Personnel on the ground were given the task of making an air purifier using only what was