Apollo 13 mission

11 April 1970, NASA launches its Apollo 13 mission from Kennedy Space Centre. 3 astronauts, commander Jim Lovell, pilot Fred Haise and pilot Jack Swigert were sitting on it who were heading towards moon but interestingly its not even been a complete year since Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. It was NASA's third mission to send people on Moon. These astronauts were really confident on stepping on moon but they were unaware that their dream will never come true.

Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 were a success. Astronauts didn't only landed safely on moon but came back to Earth safely. Apollo 13's objective was not only to research about Moon's soil but also to find out human existence on Moon. Apollo 13 was supposed to land on Moon's Fra Mauro crater which is believed to have a lot of things hidden.

13 April 1970, Swigert was asked to check the oxygen level while doing the inspection they heard a massive blast. Within a few seconds all the 10 warning signals were turned on. It was found that one of their oxygen tanks has burst completely and the oxygen from other tank was leaking rapidly. As a result spacecraft diverted from its path and was heading away from Earth and Moon. It became a question that whether they will ever return on Earth or not?

NASA had to take quick action in order to save the lives of the astronauts. Simplest way was to rotate the spacecraft towards Earth but for that pilots had to start the main engine of Service Module but it was completely destroyed due to the blast.

Second option was to go towards Moon, revolve around its orbit once and then return back to Earth. This option didn't need to start the engine of Service Module but this could take 4-5 days to return back. Did the astronauts had enough oxygen and water left? Mission director chooses the second option as it was more safer than the first one. Astronauts were told to shut down all the non essential systems in the spacecraft as power was needed for atleast 4-5 days. All the three astronauts had to sit in the lunar module which was designed for landing purpose on Moon.

So according to the plan they sat on the Lunar Module and for the first time the engines of Lunar Module were fired towards Moon. With the help of this fire they reached to the other side of Moon becoming the first humans to reach the farthest place from the Earth.

If everything worked according to the plan then they could reach Earth in 153 hours but this time margin was very risky. If they reached Earth after so long then only 1 hour of surplus food, water and oxygen would remain with them. To reach Earth in faster time, astronauts were told to fire the lunar module for the second time. After the second fire time gap reduced from 153 hours to 143 hours.

Astronauts were instructed not to drink more than 200 ml of water because drinking more water will make astronauts urinate more and more quantity of urine could change the direction of spacecraft. Commander thought that the spacecraft needed one more round of fire and luckily spacecraft could withstand the third fire too even though it was designed to handle only one fire.

Everybody was waiting for the astronauts to return. Everybody was thinking that when the spacecraft will enter Earth's atmosphere, will it sustain the heat impact? When the spacecraft entered Earth's atmosphere there was a communication blackout which was normal but it was expected that communication would be restored after 2-3 minutes. 3 minutes passed, another 1 minute passed, another 4 minutes passed but there was no communication. Everyone thought that astronauts couldn't survive. After 4:27 minutes one voice came from the other end,

'HOUSTON, THIS IS HONESTY'

On 17 April, 1970 all the astronauts landed in pacific ocean through a parachute. Though Apollo 13 was a failure but it has marked itself in the history. Many books and novels were made on this. With this NASA adopted many safety measures and successfully launched Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17.

7 Dec 1972, it was the last time till today that humans ever went to Moon. What's the reason behind it?