Space Rocket History Archive

Space Rocket History #265 – Apollo 13 – Translunar Coast – The Calm Before the Storm

As Lovell prepared for the thruster adjustments, Haise finished closing down the LEM and drifted through the tunnel back toward the command module and Swigert threw the switch to stir all 4 cryogenic tanks.

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Space Rocket History #264 – Apollo 13 – Orbit, Translunar Injection, Docking, and Extraction

Milt Windier’s team at mission control quickly reviewed the status of the remaining four engines, ran the computations for the new engine cutoff times, and passed them to the crew.

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Space Rocket History #263 – Apollo 13 – The Launch

During the Apollo era, North American-Downey built the Apollo Command & Service Module. After each completed spacecraft, Nasa conducted formal reviews of the build paper work before each vehicle was accepted for flight.

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Space Rocket History #262 – Apollo 13 – Commander Jim Lovell

Lovell completed four space flights and is one of only three men to travel to the Moon twice. Lovell accrued over 715 hours spent in space, and he saw a total of 269 sunrises from space on his Gemini and Apollo flights.

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Space Rocket History #261 – Apollo 13 – Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise

At thirty-six, Haise was the youngest member of the crew of Apollo 13, and his black hair and angular features made him seem younger still.

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Space Rocket History #260 – Apollo 13 – Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert

John Leonard Swigert Jr. aka Jack Swigert was born on August 30, 1931 in Denver, Colorado to parents John Leonard Sr. and Virginia Swigert.

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Space Rocket History #259 – Apollo 13 – Introduction – Part 2

Just before the mission began things started to go wrong. The weekend before launch Charlie Duke, the backup lunar module pilot, came down with a case of German measles.

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Space Rocket History #258 – Apollo 13 – Introduction – Part 1

Targeted for touchdown on the third lunar landing was a place known as the Fra Mauro range, a stretch of rugged, Appalachian-type mounds 110 miles east of the Apollo 12 landing site.

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Space Rocket History #257 – Apollo 12 – Return, Re-entry and Splashdown

Ten days ago, their Saturn V rocket had blasted Bean and his crew mates out of earth’s gravitational pull. Now their home planet was pulling them back at more than 24,000 miles per hour, twelve times faster than a high-speed rifle bullet. “Boy,” said Bean, “we are really hauling!”

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Space Rocket History #256 – Apollo 12 – Leaving the Moon

Dick Gordon opened the tunnel to Intrepid, saw his companions floating in a dirty cloud of moon dust, and slammed the hatch closed. He called out, “You guys ain’t gonna mess up my nice clean spacecraft!”

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