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Houston, we have a real problem
Friday 22 November 2013
Friday 22 November 2013
Apollo 13's Jim Lovell:
Houston, we have a real problem
THE HERO OF APOLLO 13 THINKS THAT SPACE EXPLORATION HAS LOST DIRECTION, AND IT'S TIME FOR AN INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO GET A MAN TO MARS
9:47AM GMT 29 Oct 2013
It took the Cold War to put the first man on the Moon, but it’s going to take cooperation between the world’s spacefaring nations if we are going to venture on to Mars. That is the verdict of Jim Lovell, one of the greatest space heroes of the Apollo adventure – itself a feat of exploration that seems more extraordinary and difficult today than it did four decades ago.
It was a poignant moment when Lovell visited the Science Museum last week to accept the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators’ premier award, its Guild Award of Honour for Aviation Heroism and Professionalism.
As he stood before the museum’s Apollo 10 Command Module, he took questions from schoolchildren who were crowding around to get a close look at the space veteran, who was played by Tom Hanks in the filmApollo 13.
But later Lovell admitted that if he was offered the opportunity to go into space today, "I would think twice about it", because it could be "a half-assed programme that might die".
Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 at the Science Museum. (Photo: Paul Grover)
9:47AM GMT 29 Oct 2013
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It took the Cold War to put the first man on the Moon, but it’s going to take cooperation between the world’s spacefaring nations if we are going to venture on to Mars. That is the verdict of Jim Lovell, one of the greatest space heroes of the Apollo adventure – itself a feat of exploration that seems more extraordinary and difficult today than it did four decades ago.
It was a poignant moment when Lovell visited the Science Museum last week to accept the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators’ premier award, its Guild Award of Honour for Aviation Heroism and Professionalism.
As he stood before the museum’s Apollo 10 Command Module, he took questions from schoolchildren who were crowding around to get a close look at the space veteran, who was played by Tom Hanks in the filmApollo 13.
But later Lovell admitted that if he was offered the opportunity to go into space today, "I would think twice about it", because it could be "a half-assed programme that might die".
Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 at the Science Museum. (Photo: Paul Grover)
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The contrast could not be more stark with what happened after he was blasted into space on 11 April 1970, on his second Moon mission.
Nasa marshalled all of its extraordinary resources, and the ingenuity of Lovell and his crew, to bring Apollo 13 safely home after an explosion ruptured two oxygen tanks 200,000 miles away from Earth.
Although the Apollo 13 radio message saying "failure is not an option" is as mythical as "Houston, we have a problem" (changed in the film from "Houston, we’ve had a problem"), it perfectly captures the spirit of the age of Apollo, when astronauts with the right stuff remained calm in a time of great danger, and almost anything seemed possible.
Skip forward to 2004, when a great venture to the Moon and Mars was announced by President Bush. But the subsequent Constellation Program did not really get off the launch pad and was cancelled by President Obama.
"I was unhappy about that," said Lovell. Now Nasa is working on the prosaically named Space Launch System, or SLS. This "big rocket", as Lovell describes it, will be capable of lifting astronauts and hardware to asteroids, the Moon and Mars. But Nasa, he declared, is like a ship without a rudder.
Today it is fashionable to say the real future lies in commercial space ventures: the Cygnus spacecraft of Orbital Sciences, and Dragon of SpaceX, founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, have docked with the International Space Station. Boeing and the Sierra Nevada Corporation are working on space taxis. Lovell himself is involved with Golden Spike, a private spacefaring venture that relies on existing technology to return to the moon.
The original Apollo 13 crew. From left to right are: Commander, James A Lovell, Command Module pilot, Thomas K Mattingly and Lunar Module pilot, Fred W Haise. (Photo: Rex)
But Lovell points out that many of these private ventures depend heavily on Nasa subsidies, and are hardly commercial in the sense that he understands but a "government-funded programme without the oversight a government programme would normally have". Yes, this set-up can be more nimble and efficient but, leaving aside the little suborbital hops planned by Virgin Galactic, it is a long way from launching cargo to the risky business of ‘man rated’ technology capable of both lofting humans into space and then taking them somewhere like Mars. No wonder that ambitious targets for manned missions set by commercial ventures are slipping.
Even Nasa is currently dependent on the Soyuz capsules of their former rivals Russia. The US forks out $71 million (£46 million) per seat to reach the International Space Station. Meanwhile, Lovell remarks, the Chinese programme "is coming along very well" and it is obvious – at least to him – that, they should join forces with Japan, Russia, European Space Agency and Nasa, as with the space station, so that humankind can take the next great step. "It depends on how serious we are, and how cooperative we are going to get.”
To him, the reason world governments should work together is obvious: the Apollo programme was a virtuoso demonstration of how manned space exploration not only provides a boost to science and technology but has vast intangible benefits, notably in education. Standing next to him in the museum last week, before a sea of children with upturned faces, it was hard to not to agree.
Roger Highfield is the director of External Affairs, Science Museum
The contrast could not be more stark with what happened after he was blasted into space on 11 April 1970, on his second Moon mission.
Nasa marshalled all of its extraordinary resources, and the ingenuity of Lovell and his crew, to bring Apollo 13 safely home after an explosion ruptured two oxygen tanks 200,000 miles away from Earth.
Although the Apollo 13 radio message saying "failure is not an option" is as mythical as "Houston, we have a problem" (changed in the film from "Houston, we’ve had a problem"), it perfectly captures the spirit of the age of Apollo, when astronauts with the right stuff remained calm in a time of great danger, and almost anything seemed possible.
Skip forward to 2004, when a great venture to the Moon and Mars was announced by President Bush. But the subsequent Constellation Program did not really get off the launch pad and was cancelled by President Obama.
"I was unhappy about that," said Lovell. Now Nasa is working on the prosaically named Space Launch System, or SLS. This "big rocket", as Lovell describes it, will be capable of lifting astronauts and hardware to asteroids, the Moon and Mars. But Nasa, he declared, is like a ship without a rudder.
Today it is fashionable to say the real future lies in commercial space ventures: the Cygnus spacecraft of Orbital Sciences, and Dragon of SpaceX, founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk, have docked with the International Space Station. Boeing and the Sierra Nevada Corporation are working on space taxis. Lovell himself is involved with Golden Spike, a private spacefaring venture that relies on existing technology to return to the moon.
The original Apollo 13 crew. From left to right are: Commander, James A Lovell, Command Module pilot, Thomas K Mattingly and Lunar Module pilot, Fred W Haise. (Photo: Rex)
But Lovell points out that many of these private ventures depend heavily on Nasa subsidies, and are hardly commercial in the sense that he understands but a "government-funded programme without the oversight a government programme would normally have". Yes, this set-up can be more nimble and efficient but, leaving aside the little suborbital hops planned by Virgin Galactic, it is a long way from launching cargo to the risky business of ‘man rated’ technology capable of both lofting humans into space and then taking them somewhere like Mars. No wonder that ambitious targets for manned missions set by commercial ventures are slipping.
Even Nasa is currently dependent on the Soyuz capsules of their former rivals Russia. The US forks out $71 million (£46 million) per seat to reach the International Space Station. Meanwhile, Lovell remarks, the Chinese programme "is coming along very well" and it is obvious – at least to him – that, they should join forces with Japan, Russia, European Space Agency and Nasa, as with the space station, so that humankind can take the next great step. "It depends on how serious we are, and how cooperative we are going to get.”
To him, the reason world governments should work together is obvious: the Apollo programme was a virtuoso demonstration of how manned space exploration not only provides a boost to science and technology but has vast intangible benefits, notably in education. Standing next to him in the museum last week, before a sea of children with upturned faces, it was hard to not to agree.
Roger Highfield is the director of External Affairs, Science Museum
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Apollo 13
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Apollo mission. For the film based upon it, see Apollo 13 (film). For the Lovell-authored book called Apollo 13, see Lost Moon.
The Apollo 13 crew photographed the Moon out the Lunar Module overhead rendezvous window as they passed by; the deactivated Command Module is visible
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| Mission type | Manned lunar landing | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | NASA[1] | ||||
| COSPAR ID | 1970-029A | ||||
| SATCAT № | 4371 | ||||
| Mission duration | 5 days, 22 hours, 54 minutes, 41 seconds | ||||
| Spacecraft properties | |||||
| Spacecraft | Apollo CSM-109 Apollo LM-7 | ||||
| Manufacturer | CSM: North American Rockwell LM: Grumman | ||||
| Launch mass | CSM: 28,790 kilograms (63,470 lb) CM: 5,609 kilograms (12,365 lb) SM: Mass 23,181 kilograms (51,105 lb) LM: 15,192 kilograms (33,493 lb) | ||||
| Crew | |||||
| Crew size | 3 | ||||
| Callsign | CM: Odyssey LM: Aquarius | ||||
| Start of mission | |||||
| Launch date | April 11, 1970, 19:13:00 UTC | ||||
| Rocket | Saturn V SA-508 | ||||
| Launch site | Kennedy LC-39A | ||||
| End of mission | |||||
| Landing date | April 17, 1970, 18:07:41 UTC | ||||
| Landing site | South Pacific Ocean 21°38′24″S 165°21′42″W | ||||
| Orbital parameters | |||||
| Reference system | Geocentric | ||||
| Regime | Cislunar | ||||
| Flyby of the Moon (failed orbiter/lander) | |||||
| Closest approach | April 15, 1970, 00:21:00 UTC | ||||
| Distance | 254 kilometers (137 nmi) | ||||
| Docking with LM | |||||
| Docking date | April 11, 1970, 22:32:08 UTC | ||||
| Undocking date | April 17, 1970, 16:43:00 UTC | ||||
  Left to right: Lovell, Swigert, Haise
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Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST from theKennedy Space Center, Florida, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the Service Module (SM) upon which the Command Module (CM) depended. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to jury-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely toEarth on April 17.
The flight was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. "Jack" Swigert as Command Module Pilot and Fred W. Haise as Lunar Module Pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for the original CM pilot Ken Mattingly, who was grounded by the flight surgeon after exposure to German measles.
CONTENTS
[hide]CREW
| Position | Astronaut | |
|---|---|---|
| Commander | Jim Lovell Fourth and last spaceflight | |
| Command Module Pilot | Jack Swigert Only spaceflight | |
| Lunar Module Pilot | Fred Haise Only spaceflight | |
Prime and backup crew
By the standard crew rotation in place during the Apollo program, the prime crew for Apollo 13 would have been the backup crew for Apollo 10 with Mercury and Gemini veteran L. Gordon Cooper in command. That crew was composed of
- L. Gordon Cooper, Jr (Commander);
- Donn F. Eisele (Command Module Pilot);
- Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot).
Deke Slayton, NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, never intended to rotate Cooper and Eisele to another mission, as both were out of favor with NASA management for various reasons (Cooper for his lax attitude towards training, and Eisele for incidents aboard Apollo 7 and an extra-marital affair). He assigned them to the backup crew simply because of a lack of flight-qualified manpower in the Astronaut Office at the time the assignment needed to be made.[2] Slayton felt Cooper had a very small chance of receiving the Apollo 13 command if he did an outstanding job with the assignment, which he did not. Despite Eisele's issues with management, Slayton always intended to assign him to a future Apollo Applications Program mission rather than a lunar mission, but this program was eventually cut down to only the Skylab component.
Thus, the original assignment Slayton submitted to his superiors for this flight was:
- Alan B. Shepard, Jr (Commander);
- Stuart A. Roosa (Command Module Pilot);
- Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot).
For the first time ever, Slayton's recommendation was rejected by management, who felt that Shepard needed more time to train properly for a lunar flight, as he had only recently benefited from experimental surgery to correct an inner ear disorder which had kept him grounded since his first Mercury flight in 1961. Thus, Lovell's crew, backup for the historic Apollo 11 mission and therefore slated for Apollo 14, was swapped with Shepard's crew[2] and the original crew selection for the mission became:
Prime crew:
| Position | Astronaut | |
|---|---|---|
| Commander | James A. Lovell, Jr. | |
| Command Module Pilot | T. Kenneth Mattingly II | |
| Lunar Module Pilot | Fred W. Haise, Jr. | |
Backup crew:
| Position | Astronaut | |
|---|---|---|
| Commander | John W. Young | |
| Command Module Pilot | John L. Swigert | |
| Lunar Module Pilot | Charles M. Duke, Jr | |
Ken Mattingly was originally slated to be the Command Module Pilot. Seven days before launch, Charles Duke contracted German measles from one of his children. This exposed both prime and backup crews, who trained together. Mattingly was found to be the only one of the other five who had not had German measles as a child and thus was not immune. Three days before launch, at the insistence of the Flight Surgeon, Swigert was moved to the prime crew.[3]
Mattingly never contracted the German measles, and was assigned after the flight as Command Module Pilot to Young's crew, which later flewApollo 16, the fifth mission to land on the Moon.
Support crew
