Finding an unlikely hero in duct tape, NASA's ground team helped the astronauts create an adapter using the tape to connect spacesuit hoses and tube socks, saving Haise, Lovell, and Swigert.
The testing team decided to solve this problem by heating the tank overnight to force the liquid oxygen to burn off.
When most people think of emergency fixes in space, the first incident that comes to mind is the famous Apollo 13 mission. The astronauts fashioned duct tape and surplus materials into air filtration canisters in the lunar module to keep all three astronauts alive for the entire trip home.
Using only material available on the spacecraft, Mission Control workers began devising a mechanism that would provide more carbon dioxide buffering. The ultimate solution involved using a piece of cardboard, a plastic bag, a hose from a pressure suit, duct tape and a sock to connect the command module scrubbers.
In order to survive, the crew had to transfer to Aquarius, the Landing Module meant to land on the Moon. They moved to this part of the spacecraft quickly, around an hour after the explosion occurred. However, this spacecraft was only designed to support two men for two days and lacked a heat shield needed for reentry.
Finding an unlikely hero in duct tape, NASA's ground team helped the astronauts create an adapter using the tape to connect spacesuit hoses and tube socks, saving Haise, Lovell, and Swigert.
It's the story of the engine that brought those astronauts home, and the chemist who invented it. On April 13, 1970, Gerard Elverum's pintle injector rocket engine fired for 34 seconds to put the damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft on a safe path back to Earth.
And, it had scorched wiring insulation from being tested at incorrect voltages. all the oxygen tanks from that facility had a similar problem. Fixing both of these would most certainly have prevented the Apollo 13 accident.
Glynn Lunney, the NASA flight director who led the rescue of three Apollo 13 astronauts when their spacecraft ran into trouble en route to the moon, has died aged 84. Lunney passed away on March 19 in Clear Lake, Texas from stomach cancer.
The command module was dying, quickly. But the lunar lander, docked to the command module, was intact. Under the direction of Glynn Lunney, the flight director whose shift followed Mr. Kranz's, the Apollo 13 astronauts scrambled into the lunar module, which served as their lifeboat.
You can use duct tape for compression on a sprained ankle or broken ribs, for a tourniquet, to hold together a splint, as butterfly bandages, protect a blistered foot, make a crutch or sling, or to remove splinters.
Duct tape was originally invented by Johnson & Johnson's Permacel division during WWII for the military. The military specifically needed a waterproof tape that could be used to keep moisture out of ammunition cases.
Duct tape has now become multipurpose and is used for general sealing, patching holes, packing boxes and repairs. Some duct tape can also stick to rough and uneven indoor and outdoor surfaces such as wood, stone, plaster, brick and metal.
As the astronauts settled in the LM there was a gradual build-up of carbon dioxide gas. The environmental system in the LM depended on two lithium hydroxide (LiOH) filters to remove excess carbon dioxide (exhaled by humans as part of normal respiration) from the atmosphere.
3.5 Apollo 13
During the second period, the Commander, Command Module Pilot, and Lunar Module Pilot slept 5, 6, and 9 hours, respectively. The third sleep period was scheduled for 61 hours, but the orygen tank incident at 56 hours precluded sleep by any of the crew until approximately 80 hours.
The O2 tanks were stirred in order to get an accurate reading on the gauging systems, as the cryogenic oxygen tends to solidify in the tanks, and stirring allows for a more accurate reading on the quantity of O2 remaining in the tank. But this was not the first time the crew had been ordered to stir the tank.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 13 mission that never made it to the moon, the one where Commander Jim Lovell uttered the phrase “Houston, we've had a problem.” NASA calls the mission a “successful failure,” because even though an explosion crippled the primary spacecraft two days in, Lovell ...
During the Apollo 13 mission, the LM environmental control system provided a habitable environment for about 83 hours (57:45 to 141:05 GET). Cabin temperature remained low due to low electrical power levels. This caused crew discomfort during much of this period, with cabin temperatures ranging between 49°F and 55 °F.
Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) failed two days into the mission.
The purpose of stirring the cryogenic tanks containing the hydrogen and oxygen was to give more accurate readings of how much gas was left. But because of an electrical fault, one of the oxygen tanks exploded. Initially the crew thought a meteoroid had hit them, but it soon became apparent they were losing oxygen.
As the Apollo 13 crew re-entered the Earth's atmosphere there was a blackout period where they couldn't communicate with mission control. The blackout period was supposed to last three minutes, but it lasted 90 seconds longer, leaving those at mission control unaware if the crew were going to make it home safely.
For the Apollo 13 mission, the blackout was much longer than normal because the flight path of the spacecraft was unexpectedly at a much shallower angle than normal.
"They would have missed the Earth and died a lonely death in space when their oxygen ran out," Chaikin said in the narration, with initial editions including the erroneous information. "Even more chilling," he added, "their bodies would never have returned, because Apollo 13 would have circled in space forever.
At the outset of the program, NASA had formally established the target probability of overall success for each Apollo mission—a landing and return—at 90 percent. Overall crew safety was estimated at 99.9 percent.
Several more astronauts who flew to the moon, but didn't land, are alive as well. They include Apollo 8′s Frank Borman, 93, Apollo 8 and 13′s Jim Lovell, 93, Apollo 8′s Bill Anders, 88, Apollo 10′s Tom Stafford, 91, Apollo 13′s Fred Haise, 88, and Apollo 16′s Ken Mattingly, 85.