SkyMan says: 50 years ago today, 4/13/70, Apollo 13's fuel cell went Boom! UPDATED 4/17.

SkyMan

Fifty years ago today, Apollo 13 was coasting from the Earth to the Moon. The crew; Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert, had just finished a TV broadcast that was not used by any of the TV networks in the US, as going to land on the Moon had become "normal/boring". The astronauts were getting ready to go to sleep. There are several "housekeeping" chores the astronauts do before they go to sleep, and another set they do when they wake up.

One of the chores the astronauts do before they go to sleep is to stir the O2 and H2 tanks. O2 and H2 are stored at cryogenic temperatures. They are mixed together in fuel cells, and the chemical process creates H2O and energy. O2 is also used for breathing in space. When stored at cryogenic temperatures, over time both O2 and H2 become somewhat stratified by the phase state they are in, e.g. liquid or gas. To keep combined in one "slushy" state there are fans inside the tanks that are turned on every now and then to mix the individual gases. When this occurred on Apollo 13 a spark from a failed wire in the O2 tank caused an explosion, that blew out the side of the Service Module, and put the crew in a potentially fatal situation.

The crew was able to use their Lunar Module (LM) as a lifeboat to get back to Earth. For those of you that have not seen it, I would recommend the movie, "Apollo 13". While not a documentary, it actually hews pretty closely to what actually happened (of course it does have some Hollywood "drama" added that did not occur in real life).

Here's an interview with Jim Lovell and Fred Haise about the spaceflight:
collectspace.com/news/news-041320a-apollo13-50th-lovell-haise-interview.html

I've attached an image of a page in my Apollo 12 flight plan from roughly the same time that the explosion occurred in Apollo 13. You can see what the crew was supposed to do before they went to sleep in the Presleep Checklist about halfway down in the center column of the page. Needless to say, things didn't go quite that way on Apollo 13.

Post a coin from 1970 in commemoration of the mission.

BryceM

No coins from that date to share, but I love your posts. The story of Apollo 13 is fantastic. The movie is pretty good, but as you say a little heavy on the Hollywood stuff. The mission profile of the Apollo program did not provide for much redundancy at all - most of what they could have used was simply too heavy to be practical. Of necessity, those missions were engineered with narrow margins. The way they squeezed out of those vehicles what they needed for a successful abort is a case study in brilliant crisis management.

It's a darn shame Jim Lovell and Fred Haise didn't get the chance to walk on the moon. They really worked for it and deserved it.

1630Boston

@skyman,
A simple question for you, is the 'time' in the flight plans in hours from liftoff ??
Thanks

SkyMan

@1630Boston said:
@skyman,
A simple question for you, is the 'time' in the flight plans in hours from liftoff ??
Thanks

Yes. In the Apollo 12 case you are looking at presleep activities around 42 hours into the mission. If I remember correctly Apollo 13 was around 55 hours into the mission for that night's presleep checklist activities. The crew's sleep cycle was adjusted each mission to maximize awake time for mission critical assignments, such as taking pictures of certain areas of the Moon in daylight.

1630Boston

Thanks @SkyMan

1630Boston

The only coin I have ending in "70"

ricko

That was truly an epic chapter in our space program. Certainly a testament to the men and women (in space and on the ground) and their courage and ability under pressure. Cheers, RickO

SaorAlba

Even Hollywood couldn't have scripted a more successful failure.

Curiously I was thinking of the movie the other day whilst making do with what I had available on one of those inevitable "honey do" projects where I had to improvise because I cannot presently get out to the store to get the stuff to accomplish the painting project. I was thinking of the scene in the movie where the crew in Houston were gathering all the stuff that the astronauts in the capsule in space had available to them to work around the problem with the Lunar module.

matt_dac

relicsncoins

I was born the day before. Don't remember much of the event.

dcarr

Engineers are the best

Here is my 1970 quarter (this one a rare proof-hub "Type-H" reverse):

pointfivezero

Great post, SkyMan. Has anyone else been following along in "real time" with this cool link:

https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/

Jimnight

@SkyMan ... I remember. Awsome pics.

PipestonePete

BLUEJAYWAY

While I was always impressed with the first moon landing, I held the bringing home of the 3 astronauts just as impressive.

joeykoins

Good time and good read. During those events and years, that's when my childhood growing up then, led me to pursue my dream. Of also being an astronaut. Then when I grown to be an adult, I thankfully pursued a far and better life. I pursued something beyond the stars and planets. We all know Who that is!

SkyMan

50 years ago today, Apollo 13 landed safely back on Earth. Here are a couple pieces from my collection. The first one is comparable to @PipestonePete 's piece. It was taken a little earlier in the roll. The second artifact is self explanatory...

CoinJunkie

I recall Nixon saying on TV that it was "the happiest day of my life", or similar. Definitely a tense and dramatic situation, and it was a huge relief when they landed safely.

SaorAlba

Curiously when I was visiting the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida a few years ago I bought two things in the gift shop.

One was this, I always liked the mission patch for Apollo XIII - so it is parked over my desk next to a photo of the SU-27 from Ekaterinburg.

johnny9434

In just glad they made it home with their lifes. Some one was watching over them