NASA’s command center hardly sleeps. Flight monitors worked around the clock, taking a few minutes of sleep under their desks to try to get the crew back.
The rescue ship successfully landed on Earth in the South Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970.
At this time, the distance from the ship to Earth is about 322,000 km. At that time, only the two most powerful rockets were proposed: Saturn and Nova. But with such a long distance, they need a huge amount of fuel and it is expected that when they arrive, the materials will be completely destroyed. This option has been eliminated.
Option 2 was discussed, which is to meet in earth orbit. This option would require launching two Saturn V rockets, one containing the spacecraft and one containing the fuel. The spacecraft will remain in orbit and be loaded with enough fuel to fly to the moon and back. And the entire spacecraft will land on the moon.
While humanity tends to the astronauts hanging between life and death, a team of engineers and experts on the ground race with a plan to bring everyone back to earth alive.
The Apollo 13 Odyssey command module is loaded aboard the USS Iwo Jima
In a BBC documentary about the above event released in 2017, the people in this team were honored as the silent heroes who rescued Apollo 13. Among them, Sy Liebergot was the first person to discover the shaft. Apollo 13 malfunction while on duty at the Electronic Environment and Communications (Eecom) group control desk at NASA’s control station in Houston – USA
Returning to the rescue, the final plan was proposed, which was to meet in lunar orbit. They decided to use two parts of the ship, the control system and the lunar landing system as well as its engine, as an emergency rescue spacecraft. This helped save the lives of the entire crew.
Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise became American heroes
While Apollo 13 flew around behind the Moon, the crew photographed the Tsiolkovsky crater. There are also small craters around, showing the complex structure of this planet’s surface.
The decision to leave part of Apollo 13 behind and use the lunar lander as an emergency rescue ship also helped astronauts photograph the explosion scene. The photo shows the right side of the spacecraft where it exploded.
After nearly 88 tense hours on the seriously damaged spacecraft, on April 17, 1970, the rescue ship successfully landed on Earth, in the South Pacific Ocean.
Returning safely to earth after their life-or-death journey, the crew of Apollo 13 were honored as international heroes.
The crew was greeted and congratulated by President Richard Nixon
Cold, hungry, dehydrated (almost all the water was used to cool the onboard systems), the three astronauts all lost most of their body weight. More worryingly, Mr. Fred Haise had a kidney infection. But only then did everyone dare to breathe a sigh of relief because all three people had returned to their motherland, not wandering in endless space but just thinking about it made everyone shudder.
President Richard Nixon was extremely emotional at that time: “For most of humanity, space has never been as infinitely far away as when the Apollo 13 spacecraft crashed nearly 250 thousand miles from Earth toward the Moon. The entire country gratefully said to the crew and to those on the ground who had done a wonderful job guiding Apollo 13 safely back from a hair’s breadth of danger: Great! ”
The return of Apollo 13 showed that behind each astronaut were hundreds of people trying their best to ensure that everyone departed with dignity and returned to their motherland safely.
Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton in the movie Apollo 13
The story of Apollo 13 inspired Hollywood astronaut filmmakers. In 1995, the movie “Apollo 13 – The Mystery of the Moon” was released by director Ron Howard with the participation of stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton, recreating all the drama of the flight. .
The film has given viewers a lot of useful historical knowledge and lessons about how to work, how to handle situations, face difficulties, and most of all, lessons about success and failure.
The film grossed $355 million when it opened and received nine Oscar nominations later.