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NASA Earth Moon Space

Remembering Apollo 13 at 50 (apnews.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the Houston-we've-had-a-problem dept.
Marcia Dunn from The Associated Press remembers the Apollo 13 mission 50 years later: Apollo 13âs astronauts never gave a thought to their mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago. Even when their oxygen tank ruptured two days later â" on April 13. Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they're not superstitious. They even use 13 in their email addresses. As mission commander Lovell sees it, he's incredibly lucky. Not only did he survive NASA's most harrowing moonshot, he's around to mark its golden anniversary. "I'm still alive. As long as I can keep breathing, I'm good," Lovell, 92, said in an interview with The Associated Press from his Lake Forest, Illinois, home. A half-century later, Apollo 13 is still considered Mission Control's finest hour. Lovell calls it "a miraculous recovery." Haise, like so many others, regards it as NASA's most successful failure. "It was a great mission," Haise, 86, said. It showed "what can be done if people use their minds and a little ingenuity."
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Remembering Apollo 13 at 50 More

Remembering Apollo 13 at 50

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  • Navy pilots (Score:3)

    by invictusvoyd ( 3546069 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @02:13AM (#59931670)
    Jim Lovell could fly a washing machine ... if it it had wings on it :-)

  • As a little kid (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @02:19AM (#59931676)

    I still remember being amazed at Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. But Apollo 13 was what brought it home that these guys were sitting in a tiny pressurized vessel, in vacuum, many thousands of miles away from the safety of earth... and it was a very real possibility they could die out there.

    (At the time I didn't know about the Apollo 1 disaster - that astronauts had already died, on earth)

    We watched the evening news every night to hear what progress had been made (or what had failed). We talked about it at school. We talked about it while shooting hoops. Everyone was watching, and everyone smiled when they managed to bring them home.

  • Revisit Apollo 13 as it happened (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NimbleSquirrel ( 587564 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @02:48AM (#59931716)

    There are some really cool projects out there recreating the history of the Apollo missions.

    Apollo 13 in Real Time [apolloinrealtime.org] is probably the most extensive, with live playbacks of actual mission control audio channels, as well as video and stills.

    On Twitter, @apollo_50th [twitter.com] is tweeting the mission as it happened 50 years ago.

  • Not possible now (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11, 2020 @03:06AM (#59931746)
    It was the old days when companies prided themselves on their work. Modern vendors for NASA will have levels of sub contractors so when things go wrong it'll be difficult to locate the people who designed, built, and programmed the parts. Let alone any one engineer who understands it all.

  • ... people also had less problems with simple stuff like quotes, apostrophes or dashes.

  • I was a child when all this happened.
    That was an exciting time in history - the space age was just happening, and I, along with just about just about everyone else in the world, was sitting on the edge of my seat hoping those three guys would make it home alive.

  • It's more accurately a failure, with a successful recovery.

  • Movie Apollo 13 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Saturday April 11, 2020 @10:56AM (#59932594)
    I was apprehensive when the movie came out, because hollywood likes to "stretch" history. After seeing the movie I was happy they didn't "hollywood" the movie too much. I remember Apollo 13, almost 11 years old when they lifted off. I had watched every U.S. space flight since John Glenn. Boy, those were the days.

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