HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM

this little paper recorder has been a big benefit to us and passing through the time away and our transit out to the moon and it's rather odd to see it floating like this in odyssey while it's playing uh the theme from 2001 april 13th 1970 the mood could only be described as relaxed apollo 13 man's fifth lunar mission the third scheduled to land on the moon continued its tranquility everybody there nice evening and uh we're just about ready to close and get back for a pleasant evening 13 we've got one more item for you when you get a chance we'd like it to uh stir up your cryo tanks in addition i have a shaft and trunnion okay or look at the comet bennett if you need it okay okay we've got a problem here this is houston say again please oh you know we've had a problem we've got a bus on our boat okay standby 13 we're looking at it and we had a pretty large bang associated with the uh caution and warning there and as i recall maybe was the one that had a amp spike on it uh once before in the interim here we're starting to go ahead and button up the tunnel again april 11 1970 launch day the crew of apollo 13 jim lovell commander and veteran of three previous missions he had orbited the moon christmas 1968 on apollo 8. fred hayes his first time up lunar module pilot jack swaggart command module pilot three days ago he was on the backup crew now he replaced ken mattingly mattingly had been dropped because he had been exposed to germinals he would watch the launch from houston's mission control auto sequence initiated flank roger flood booster so s4b pre-press complete roger play booster s1c pre-press complete we're on internal power and we'll go roger how's it look econ you got your favorite mcc recorders to flight speed ignition flight clock start flight roger roger looks good flat okay sergeant it looks fine through max doing windows right go for staging capcom confirm and board out flying flight roger flight fighter trajectory confirmed staging roger flight booster then board out was way early okay flight confirmed number five engine you down see any problem with that though do you oh negative not right now flight all the other engines are go the next step in the routine of lunar flight was to burn out of earth orbit toward the moon then pull free of the third stage and dock with the lunar module aquarius at the controls of the command module odyssey jack swaggart we're a hard doctor right here understand hard doc good deal they pulled aquarius away from the saturn third stage the s4b okay i can uh i can see the s4b now at the hatch window odyssey and aquarius moved away from earth toward the moon okay we've got a problem here fine again go guys we've had a hardware race start i don't know what it was man all right here's the way we've had a problem we've got a bus thunderbolt you see an ac bus underbolt their guidance believe the crew reported it we got a main b undervolt we may have had an instrumentation problem flat and we had a pretty large bang associated with the caution and warning uh the sensation i had uh that i had felt a vibration accompanying the bang uh not a large vibration or shutter is there any kind of leads we can give them are we looking at instrumentation we got a real problem or what we're reading uh zero and two pressure in fuel cell one and thirteen psi on uh fuel cell 302 pressure okay very what do you wanna do open circuit fuel cell one and three that's from flight shut down the reactants valve and i asked for a reconfirmation since uh when you do that it's sort of irreversible if you shut one of these things down they uh only can be restarted from ground okay let's everybody think of the kind of things we'd be venting dnc you get anything that looks abnormal in your system a negative light how about you ecom you see anything that uh with the instrumentation you've got that could be venting that's a firm flight let me look at the system flight as far as the venting is concerned okay let's start scanning here is a bulletin from abc news the apollo 13 spacecraft has had a serious power supply malfunction that could cause the lunar landing mission to be terminated early i assume you've called in your backup he comes flight say again if you call in your backup becomes now see if we can get some more brain power in there we got one here rog at the moment the astronauts are continuing to try to isolate their trouble the late report says the spacecraft now is operating on battery power alone all unnecessary equipment is being turned off okay now let's everybody keep cool we got limbs still attached the lens spacecraft's good so if we need uh to get back home we got a limb to do a good portion of it with okay let's make sure that we don't do anything that's going to blow our csm electrical power with the batteries or that will cause us to lose the main or the fuel cell number two okay we want to keep the o2 and that kind of stuff working we'd like to have rcs but we got the command module system so we're in good shape if we need to get home let's solve the problem but let's not make it any worse by guessing my concern was increasing all the time it went from i wonder what this is going to do to the landing so i wonder if we can get back home again okay i'm coming back to you flight go ahead i think the best thing we can do right now is start a power down right about then it was quite apparent to me that there was just a question of time that the command module was going to be dead you don't want to get fuel cell pumps off do you we can do that on fuel cell number one flight okay well let's make sure we don't blow the whole mission the thing that concerns me is starting is throwing equipment we had a problem we don't know the cause of the problem flight i've got a feeling we've lost two fuel cells i hate to put it that way but uh i don't know why we've lost them it doesn't all tag up network from flight flight network bring me up another computer in the rtc will you uh we got one machine on the rtcc and we got dual cps downstairs okay i want another machine up there rtcc and i want a bunch of guys capable of running d logs down there what all this means is only speculation at this point first though there has been some tumbling or rotation of the spacecraft the astronauts do not appear to be in any immediate danger i'll tell you what uh gnc can you get somebody in the back room to try to figure out what the equivalent delta v is we're getting so that we can see if we can backtrack to see if we can figure out what's venting rods we'll give it a try flight okay when i looked up and saw both oxygen pressures one absolutely zero and the other one going down uh it it dawned on me and i'm sure jack hadn't read about the same time that we were indeed in serious trouble the only way to survive the situation was to transfer to the limb flight econ the pressure in o2 tank one is all the way down to 297 you better think about getting in the land or using the limb systems i'd say this is a serious uh situation that we have ever had in manned space flight we've always called the limb a good lifeboat under those circumstances if at any time in the mission however the limb had separated and we had gotten ourselves into a rendezvous situation or uh the the command module being around the moon then what you state is absolutely true it would it would be a fatal situation telling me you from flight go ahead i want you to get some guys figuring out minimum power in the land sustained life the accident had occurred two hundred thousand miles from earth levels swaggart and haze rode in the lunar module attached to a lifeless command module apollo 13 had started as a mission of scientific exploration it was now a matter of survival since the command module was dead except for the oxygen and power hoarded for re-entry the guidance platform of aquarius designed to land on and take off from the moon would have to be used the first milestone and i consider this after the accident i guess more or less the survival now the first milestone was to get alignment on the limb platform alignments are important you know because without knowing exactly which way the attitude of the spacecraft is in space there's no way to tell how to burn or how to use the engines of that spacecraft to get the the proper trajectory to come home the position we are now on the earth moon plane we have to go around the uh the moon to get back if we're going to use the dipped engine you would have had enough capability with the sbs engine but of course we don't dare use that now so we have to go to the back side of the moon and come back to get into the correct orbit around the moon the crew had burned out of a trajectory that would automatically bring them back to earth they would have to get back onto a safe course toward earth he needs to put his throttle to men also flight throttle to men yes he's at 29 now roughly this maneuver again was completed on time and because it was a manual burn we had a three-man operation jack would uh take care of the time he'd tell us when to light off the engine when to stop it fred handled the pitch maneuver i handled the roll maneuver and i pushed the buttons to start and stop the engines aquarius and you go for the burn forty percent okay aquarius you're looking good oh shut down the first problem was solved they were back on the path to earth but there were many other problems to be solved from a building at houston's manned spacecraft center systems experts coordinated the coast-to-coast effort to get the crew back one of the big problems was consumables there would be enough to eat and drink but in space there are other factors oxygen to breed electrical power to keep the spacecraft alive water to cool the equipment and keep it operating what we'll be doing till we get them back on the water is concentrating on everything that is their lives are dependent upon at the moment rather than worrying about the accident because there's nothing we can do about that now this it appears at present time that everything is under control and that uh we have a safe situation at the moment hey i want to say you guys are doing real good work so are you guys jack we are about 70 hours from home and uh we think we have uh uh the situation in control we've projected the consumables as i've described and we have a plan for carrying out the rest of the mission but there is going to be no relaxation at all as far as that goes from now until splash there was a key decision to be made before apollo 13 went behind the moon where to bring them down their present course would take them to the indian ocean where recovery would be difficult a burn to bring them home quicker would take them to the pacific ocean near the recovery forces bringing them home even faster would place them in the south atlantic again away from recovery forces it was decided to take them to the pacific we've run uh these simulators both here and at the cape and at the contractors that uh continuously ever since uh last night we've tried to simulate virtually everything that we've had the crew to do that that is non-normal that they've done and we've proven most everything that we've been able to run on the simulator prior to passing it up to them there may be some details we haven't done but at least we've checked the feasibility of everything we've done and we'll continue to do that they passed 137 miles from the moon for level it was the second time that he had seen the moon so near but there was no time for contemplation there was another critical burn coming okay and in houston the newsman poured in to tell an anxious world the story shortly after apollo 13 had separated from the saturn third stage the stage had been sent on to a trajectory toward the moon its impact would be recorded by the seismometer left by apollo 12. by the way uh aquarius we see the results now from uh 12's seismometer looks like your booster just hit the moon and it's uh rocking it a little bit well these purple worked on this flight i'm so glad we didn't have a limb impact too jim you are go for the burn go for the burn roger honestly burn guidance okay we're good control okay we're you're looking good roger shut down roger shut down i say that was a good burn so now we want to power down as soon as possible to conserve the electric power and cooling water the crew shut down all but the vital life-sustaining systems of the lamb i think the lem spacecraft's in excellent shape and i think it's fully capable of getting the crew back i think as we have found before every time we put the limb spacecraft to a test it's always done much more than it was guaranteed to do and i think this is a good case in point conserve the consumables cooling water electric power the limb water gun was leaking and uh we shut that off and i guess it leaked about a quart of water i would i would estimate but it took me about two days to get my feet dry and of course it is i think you were all aware that the temperatures were going down in both vehicles and it's made for very chilly feet for a couple days me oh lord your astronauts will come back safe if i may be serious for one moment and ask the entire audience for a moment of prayer for the crew men of the apollo 13 we'll hold silence for a moment please rcsa stands at 62 and b at 62 percent i think we've got a hell of a long time command module just slowly kept going down in temperature until i think uh just prior to reentry uh it was down to about 38 degrees and along with that it was a sort of a chilling uh coldness the walls were perspiring the windows were completely wet and it wasn't too healthy i recall that we went in there to get some hot dogs one day and it was like reaching into the freezer for the for the food so if you want my opinion on how they handled the situation when it happened they handled it exactly like we'd expect them to they were about as well on top of it as anybody could be we know what we knew which isn't very much i'll have to admit but i think they did everything right within the knowledge that was available to us and uh the timely fashion which is what uh all we expect them they did a beautiful job of it we actually had a third little sleep restraint which fred then put on and buttered up and kept a little bit warm the astronauts faced another problem their own exhaled breath the lithium hydroxide chemical to take carbon dioxide out of the air was not sufficient in the lunar module they would have to adapt the canisters from the command module to fit the hoses in the limb on the ground an adapter was fashioned from materials the crew had available in the lamb cardboard from a checklist plastic bags and tape after checkout in an environmental chamber the directions for construction were sent up to aquarius at this point in time i think the partial pressure of carbon dioxide was reading about 15 millimeters and we constructed two of these things and put them online and i think within an hour the partial pressure of co2 is down to two tenths so you see that uh survival uh now became one of uh of initiative and ingenuity and and it was one which the ground continually helped us along we had all kinds of people on the ground trying to think of ways of of extending our lifetime there would be still another burn a mid-course correction to get apollo 13 into the narrow corridor through the atmosphere for a safe return to earth burn attitude flight college ignition thrust looks good shut down hang in there it won't be long there were moments when i didn't know how much consumables we had whether we could make it back or not but uh in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do you just keep going and you just keep thinking of where you get more consumables and so that's exactly what we did on april 17th they prepared for re-entry after a small course correction burn they jettisoned the damaged service module copy that and there's one whole side of that big business is that right well the whole panel is blown out almost from the uh face to the uh it's just really a mess man that's unbelievable next they got back into odyssey to jettison aquarius prior to entry into the atmosphere okay copy that farewell aquarius we thank you okay los in a minute or a minute and a half uh an entry attitude we'd like omni charlie and welcome home thank you odyssey houston standing by over odyssey houston we show you on the mains it really looks great apollo 13. this we observed your rcs russian zero so i recall captain that when i spoke to you on the phone you said that you regretted that you were unable to complete your mission i hereby declare that this was a successful mission from the start the exploration of space has been hazardous adventure the voyage of apollo 13 dramatized its risks the men of apollo 13 by their poise and skill under the most intense kind of pressure epitomize the character that accepts danger and surmounts it theirs is the spirit that build america your mission serve your country it served to remind us all of our proud heritage of a nation to remind us that in this age of technicians and scientific marvels that the individual still counts that in a crisis the character of a man or of men will make the difference rtcu on amne conference rjc is on the fd conference okay i'll fly controllers let's play it cool do you