Lost Moon Lovell Pdf 11
During a routine liquid oxygen tank stir in transit to the Moon, a fire started inside an oxygen tank. The most probable cause determined by NASA was damaged electrical insulation on wiring that created a spark that started the fire.[92] A problem with draining the tank had been reported before the mission, and Lovell had approved the action taken to turn on the heaters to purge the oxygen rather than to replace the faulty tank, which would have delayed the mission by a month. Neither he nor the launch pad crew were aware that the tank contained the wrong thermostat switch. The heaters were left on for eight hours, and while this successfully purged the oxygen, it also removed teflon insulation from the copper electrical wiring.[93] Liquid oxygen rapidly turned into a high-pressure gas, which burst the tank and caused the leak of a second oxygen tank. In just over two hours, all onboard oxygen was lost, disabling the hydrogen fuel cells that provided electrical power to the Command/Service Module Odyssey.[94]
Lost Moon Lovell Pdf 11
Ninety-five seconds after Swigert activated those switches,[104] the astronauts heard a "pretty large bang", accompanied by fluctuations in electrical power and the firing of the attitude control thrusters.[105][106] Communications and telemetry to Earth were lost for 1.8 seconds, until the system automatically corrected by switching the high-gain S-band antenna, used for translunar communications, from narrow-beam to wide-beam mode.[107] The accident happened at 55:54:53 (03:08 UTC on April 14, 10:08 PM EST, April 13). Swigert reported 26 seconds later, "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here," echoed at 55:55:42 by Lovell, "Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a Main B Bus undervolt."[102] William Fenner was the guidance officer (GUIDO) who was the first to report a problem in the control room to Kranz.[102]
The CSM's electricity came from fuel cells that produced water as a byproduct, but the LM was powered by silver-zinc batteries which did not, so both electrical power and water (needed for equipment cooling as well as drinking) would be critical. LM power consumption was reduced to the lowest level possible;[130] Swigert was able to fill some drinking bags with water from the CM's water tap,[121] but even assuming rationing of personal consumption, Haise initially calculated they would run out of water for cooling about five hours before reentry. This seemed acceptable because the systems of Apollo 11's LM, once jettisoned in lunar orbit, had continued to operate for seven to eight hours even with the water cut off. In the end, Apollo 13 returned to Earth with 12.8 kilograms (28.2 lb) of water remaining.[131] The crew's ration was 0.2 liters (6.8 fl oz) of water per person per day; the three astronauts lost a total of 14 kilograms (31 lb) among them, and Haise developed a urinary tract infection.[132][133] This infection was probably caused by the reduced water intake, but microgravity and effects of cosmic radiation might have impaired his immune system's reaction to the pathogen.[134]
That problem quickly took shape: the normal supply of electricity, water, and light on the vehicle's command module were lost. When he looked out the window, Lovell could see a gas escaping from the side of the spacecraft.
During a routine cryogenic oxygen tank stir in transit to the Moon, damaged electrical insulation on wiring created a spark and started a fire inside the tank. Liquid oxygen rapidly turned into a high-pressure gas, which burst the tank and caused the leak of a second oxygen tank. In just over two hours, all on-board oxygen was lost, disabling the hydrogen fuel cells that provided electrical power to the Command/Service Module Odyssey. This required an immediate abort of the Moon landing mission; the sole objective now was to safely return the crew to Earth.
The lunar module was only equipped with an alignment optical telescope. This was a lighter, simpler manual telescope (like a periscope) that the astronauts would use during moon landings and takeoffs to determine their position.
Vesta is small enough (about the same size as Saturn's moon Enceladus) to have been deeply scarred by the Rheasilvia impact that launched the HEDs, but large enough to have differentiated into an iron core, silicate mantle, and igneous crust. Dawn also found hydrated and carbon-rich material on its surface supplied by impactors, a result that was unexpected based on pre-Dawn telescopic observations.
The crew, including NASA astronauts Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, scrambled to find a fix, quickly realizing they would have to abort the lunar mission and attempt to fly home not in the main service module, but in the much smaller lunar module (originally equipped for two men to explore the surface of the moon), before re-docking with the main spacecraft.
Aside from the awe-inspiring view, Scott's story conveys the extraordinary heights Apollo reached during its brief lifetime. Just two years earlier, in July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had stayed for 31, hours on a bland acre of moonscape after history's first human lunar landing. In their single moonwalk, which lasted about as long as a feature-length film, they never ventured more than 60 meters (200 feet) from their lander. By the fourth lunar landing, Scott and Irwin were living in a lunar valley for three full days. Improved space suits and back- packs allowed them to take three moonwalks, each lasting as much as seven hours. And, most significant, their battery-powered rover gave them the capability to range miles across the surface and visit spectacular features, including a canyon 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) wide called Hadley Rille. In two short years, NASA had greatly extended the reach of human activities on another world, and it had done so in the name of scientific exploration. But it had happened despite some long odds.
Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise left Earth in April 1970, bound for the Moon's Fra Mauro highlands in what was to have been Apollo's first true science mission. The mission was lost when the command ship was crippled by an explosion 200,000 miles from Earth. Using their lunar lander as a lifeboat, and with a heroic effort by mission controllers, the men barely made it back to Earth.
In February 1971, Apollo 14's Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell picked up the torch from Lovell and Haise, exploring Fra Mauro in two moonwalks totaling more than nine hours. They found a landscape much rougher than the lava plains visited by previous moonwalkers; instead it was like an airless, rock-strewn Sahara, with undulating ridges that reminded the men of sand dunes. This roughness was probably due to the presence of material ejected from the giant Imbrium impact basin, 550 kilometers (340 miles) to the north. Finding the date of Imbrium's formation-one of the most significant events in lunar evolution-was Apollo 14's main geologic objective.
But by that time, most of us had stopped watching. Even before Apollo 11, the nation's attention had been divided. Concerned over the war in Vietnam, the endangered environment and the deteriorating inner cities, we no longer paid much attention to yet another team of astronauts exploring the Moon. By the time of Apollo 17, television networks had stopped covering the moonwalks in their entirety. The scientists working on the lunar samples had long accepted the Moon program's premature end. And at NASA, planners were already looking ahead to the space shuttle. Few mourned Apollo.
There is a moment early in "Apollo 13" when astronautJim Lovell is taking some press on a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, and hebrags that they have a computer "that fits in one room and can send outmillions of instructions." And I'm thinking to myself, hell, I'm writingthis review on a better computer than the one that got us to the moon.
"Apollo13" inspires many reflections, and one of them is that America's spaceprogram was achieved with equipment that would look like tin cans today. LikeLindbergh, who crossed the Atlantic in the first plane he could string togetherthat might make it, we went to the moon the moment we could, with the toolsthat were at hand.
Thosequalities were never demonstrated more dramatically than in the flight of the13th Apollo mission in April 1970, when an oxygen tank exploded en route to themoon. The three astronauts on board - Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert -were faced with the possibility of becoming marooned in space. Their oxygencould run out, they could be poisoned by carbon dioxide accumulations, or theycould freeze to death. If somehow they were able to return to the Earth'satmosphere, they had to enter at precisely the right angle.
Ascrubber to clean carbon dioxide from the capsule's air supply is jerry-builtout of materials on board (and you can see a guy holding one just like it in"For All Mankind"). And you begin to realize, as the astronauts swingaround the dark side of the moon and head for home, that, given the enormity ofthe task of returning to Earth, their craft and equipment is only a little moreadequate than the rocket sled in which Evil Knievel proposed to hurtle acrossSnake River Canyon at about the same time.
With"Apollo 13," he correctly decides that the story is in the mission.There is a useful counterpoint in the scenes involving Lovell's wife, waitingfearfully on the ground. (She tells their son, "Something broke on yourdaddy's spaceship, and he's going to have to turn around before he even gets tothe moon.") But Howard adds no additional side stories, no little paralleldramas, as a lesser director might have. 350c69d7ab