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Recommended: Success of Apollo 13
After watching the Apollo 13 movie, it is interesting to know that this was a “Successful failure” of a project. This is due to the fact that astronauts returned to Earth safely but they never made it to the moon. After the crew headed for the moon they had to disappointedly cancel the mission before it could be completed and return to earth, when the oxygen tank that exploded caused the spacecraft to malfunctioning.
A brief history to puts things in perspective, Apollo program was established in July 1960 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As it is normal the case, there were failures with the program in the beginning, below is the list of the missions that preceded Apollo 13:
• Apollo 1, launched on 27 January 1967 – during pre-launch there was an on-board fire that killed the crew.
• Apollo 7 (Second Mission), which was launch on 11 October 2068 – which was the first mission to successfully leave the earth and reached lower orbit of the earth. The crew returned safely.
• Apollo 8, launched on 21 December 1968 – this was the second successful mission and the first to reach the surface of the moon. The crew was led by Neil A. Armstrong, returned safely to earth.
• Apollo Missions’ 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 – these were all the successful missions that saw the crew landing into the moon and returned with valuable information, i.e. soil, lunar ranging, solar with experiments, etc.
The Launch of Apollo 13 took place on the 11 April 1970, it consisted of a crew, James A. Lovell, JR which was a commander, John L. Swigert, Jr., which was a command module pilot and Fred W. Haise, Jr., who was a Lunar module pilot. It appears that all test modules were successfully in preparation for the lau...
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Another success story in this mission was the “risk recovery mission”, which was meant to remove the carbon dioxide from rising in Apollo 13, this demonstrated teamwork and continuous improvement.
“Failure is not an option” the Commander in charge of the control room is heard saying these words. These are wise words to keep team motivated. In summary here we see the three astronauts fighting for their lives as they had not power and oxygen to survive and this concluded their trip and they needed a quick plan to take them quick to the earth. This cancelled the normal lunar landing. After a lengthy investigation it was deduced that the cause for the failure occurred in 1965 when the underrated component had to be replaced. This was during the designed modification; this oversight appeared to have affected the internal heating elements of the tank.
...ause it was the mission that NASA was able to put the first man up onto the moon. Neil Armstrong was the pilot of the Apollo 11 flight. There was a special shuttle that was attached to the spaceship; it was called the Eagle. The Eagle was designed to transport some crew members down to the moon. Armstrong was responsible for driving and landing the shuttle safely down to the moon. While on his way down to the moon, Armstrong realized that he was starting to run out of fuel. Thankfully, Armstrong did have enough to land on the moon and make it back up to the spaceship. When the Eagle was leaving the spaceship for the first time up in space, it wasn't completely depressurized so there was something like a gas bubble come from the shuttle as it was on its way to the moon. The gas bubble moved the shuttle off course and the Eagle actually landed four miles off course.
The amazing performances by the crew and ground support was what kept the crew alive. The crew and ground Apollo 13 had a huge impact on space exploration. Many people disagree with this because if they had stopped or changed the schedule of Apollo 13 they may not have failed their mission. Even though they failed at their goals the overall result was success. Apollo 13 was an amazing achievement for NASA even though they did not achieve their goals of landing on the Fra Mauro area of the moon. They landed in the pacific ocean on April 17th 1970. The name of their recovery ship was the USS Iwo Jima. The Fra Mauro site was reassigned for Apollo
The Space Race began when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space in 1957. The United States’ answer to this was the Apollo program. While the Apollo program did have successful launches, such as the Apollo 11 launch that landed Americans on the moon, not every launch went as smoothly. Fifty years ago, a disaster occurred that shook the Apollo program to its core. On January 27, 1967, the Apollo 1 command module was consumed by a fire during one of its launch rehearsal tests. This led to the death of three astronauts, Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom, Edward Higgins White, and Roger Bruce Chaffee. The fire was caused by a number of factors, most of which were technical. These causes range from the abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere of the
After safely exiting the Earth’s atmosphere and heading on course, a routine oxygen tank stir that was required often during space missions caused a coil in the tank to break loose and erupt, creating new unforeseen problems. The blast forced open most of the oxygen tanks as they leaked into space, increased the levels of carbon dioxide within the command module the men were traveling in, and severely decreased their power capabilities. Immediately NASA assembled the best and brightest men they had on staff to assess the situation and Flight Director Gene Kranz (played by Ed Harris) called off the Moon landing, changing the final task of the mission to a safe return home. Through repeated calculation, experimentation by Ken Mattingly who knew the module systems well, and a bit of luck, the men managed to slingshot themselves around the Moon, using its gravity to head back home on course. With...
Dumoulin, Jim. "Apollo 11." Kennedy Space Center Launching A Vision. 12 Dec. 2001. 13 Dec. 2001 <http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/>.
On April 13, 1970, NASA's Mission Control heard the five words that no control center ever wants to hear: "We've got a problem here." Jack Swigert, an astronaut aboard the Apollo 13 aircraft, reported the problem of broken down oxygen tanks to the Houston Control Center, less than two days after its takeoff on April 11th. Those at the Control Center in Houston were unsure what had happened to the spacecraft, but knew that some sort of explosion had occurred. This so-called explosion sent Apollo 13 spinning away from the Earth at 2,000 miles per hour, 75 percent of the way to the moon. In order to get the astronauts back to the Earth's atmosphere would be to utilize the moon's gravitational pull and send them back towards home, like a slingshot. However, this procedure would require three days, and this demanded more oxygen and electricity than the crew had available to them. Eugene "Gene" Kranz, head of this flight mission, although looking on in horror, began thinking of solutions to the problem immediately after the Controls were aware of the problem on board. Knowing that the options of refueling the spacecraft with oxygen or retrieve the astronauts himself, he needed to think of a strategy for a safe return. In this sense, if his solution fails, it could result in the biggest catastrophe in NASA history.
Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, in July 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent two and a half hours exploring, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the Command Module.
The second and final suborbital mission of the Mercury Project was launched on July 21, 1961. Gus Grissom navigated his ship, Liberty Bell 7, through flight for just 15 seconds longer than the previous mission. The next Mercury flight was accomplished using an Atlas booster. On February 20, 1962 it fired up and launched John Glenn, Jr., inside Friendship 7, into orbit. Glenn orbited Earth three times and when he returned the country celebrated.
Little did anyone know or expect this would be the most rewarding mission since 1961. Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins left from the Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida on July 16,1969. Michael Collins was the command module pilot, Neil Armstrong was the mission commander, and Buzz Aldrin was the lunar module pilot. The Apollo 11 crew traveled 240,000 miles in just 72 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19,1696. Collins detached for the lunar module The mission was already ahead of schedule with Americans waiting to see what was going to happen next for their country. At 10:39 p.m., Armstrong, being televised, opened the hatch of the lunar module, and three minutes later Armstrong made history by putting his left foot of the moon’s powdery surface. When Armstrong stepped down from the last step from the spacecraft, all of America jumped for excitement and joy. Aldrin soon joined Armstrong 19 minutes later, and together they took photographs, then planted the United States flag. President Nixon was so very blessed and honored that he was able to witness America make history on July 24, 1969 along with all of the other Americans. Returning back to Earth
This film focuses on the events of Apollo 13, which was a mission of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s manned spaceflight program. The goal of the mission was to land two astronauts on the moon to collect geological samples. However, the crew never made it there because an explosion in the middle of their flight damaged much of their rocket and its systems. Leaving
From countdown to splashdown, Apollo 11's mission was filled with some surprising twists and turns. It took a combination of luck, determination and guts for the crew of Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong to get the Eagle to the surface of the moon with only 30 seconds of fuel remaining! Experience the moments leading up to the lunar landing with me.
On April 10th James "Jim" Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise embarked on one of the most historic missions in NASA history. Three days later on April 13th, while performing a routine stir on the O2 tanks, the Apollo 13 mission suffered a terrible electrical malfunction and was forced to make an emergency return mission. The movie has forever contributed two phrases to our everyday cultural vocabulary, "Houston we have a problem", communicated by Jim Lovell, and "Failure is not an option", voiced by Gene Kranz.
“On July 16, 1969 the world watched in anticipation as three men were hurtled skyward in a rocket bound for the moon.” (news.nationalgeographic.com). This was the Apollo 11 spacecraft, the first successful manned mission to the moon. This mission was the product of the space race (race to see who would go into outer space first, against the Soviet Union). This goal was set by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961 and he promised that we would be the first to step on the moon by the end of the decade. The Apollo 11 mission is often cited as the greatest achievement in human history. (news.nationalgeographic.com)
In 1958 a group known as The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded. The first probe to escape Earth's gravity was the Soviet LUNA 1, launched on Jan. 2, 1959. It passed the Moon and continued into interplanetary space. The U.S. probe Pioneer 4, launched two months later, followed the same path. Later Soviet probes either hit the Moon or passed it and took photographs of the hidden far side, relaying them back to Earth.