40 Years Since Apollo 13

I can only image the situation that was experienced by all those involved with the sucessful failure of Apollo 13.

Article:
www.nasa.gov...


Paraphrased from Jim Lovells book:

"Apollo 10's energy storage vessels or tanks had been upgraded to new technology, requiring the removal of one of the shelves in bay. The tank was not dropped, but was being pulled by crane from the equipment bay, and one of the four bolts was left in place, causing the whole entire shelf to be slammed back into the bay some two inches of travel.

Plus the Apollo 10 tanks vessel systems used 28v dc and the new ground system requirements need the systems to be upgraded to 65v dc. The switches inside the already damaged tank were a nightmare waiting to happen."

Images and writing about the issues at a hand:
history.nasa.gov...


Findings: Apollo 13 Review Board (Cortright Commission)
history.nasa.gov...

I am glad that These Men were able to survive and return. It shows that we can overcome and make things better, even on the verge of disaster.

I thought I'd share this with you.

40 years....

I'm just amazed we never really achieved a bigger thing then flying, landing, navigating, launching ( from the moons service ) with a computer with less capacity then a modern day calculator.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Well you need to remember that the Command And Service Module was in constant uplink, downlink with Houstin. Thus enabling them to use computers on the ground and Telemetry updates to the space craft as needed. So onboard calculations were specifc and directly related to flight parameters.

They flew in AUTOMATIC MODE mostly, from the ground..

reply to post by theability


That's no surprise.

Launching a few rooms full of computers would have been very expensive.
No wonder they never seem to grow.

The first time most of science was new and never even done yet.
They just took a gamble ( basicly ) and they are lucky it worked out so well.
With the new knowledge they became more aware of what could have gone wrong so they grew more careful. With the advances in technology the things that could go wrong sky rockets up and with there new careful behaviour nothing gets done anymore just like that.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


It is actually really ingenius how they put everything together for flight of the Apollo Command and Service Modules.

The internal systems and guidance was quite amazing feat, we use to much of that 40 year old technology everyday.

Yet most of us, just don't seem to undertand that, today.

reply to post by theability


I've got to tell you that I'm surprised about the old technologies being so advanced in relation to the present like the 25 mega pixel quality of a photograph you told me about in another thread.

Ps.
The gamble was definitely a really well thought of one.