Apollo 13's Impact On Space Exploration

1084 Words3 Pages

The Apollo 13 Mission had a huge impact on space exploration. The Determination of the crew helped them return back to earth. People may think that Apollo 13 would have been a better success if they changed the launch date. Even though they failed at their goals the overall result was success. If they had changed the launch date NASA would have had more time to check the spacecraft and make sure that it was safe. If this event had not happened NASA wouldn't have learned how to make spaceships safer as well as space exploration and learn what to do in this type of emergency.
Three courageous men, James Lovell, Fred Haise Junior, and Ken Mattingly, who was replaced by John Swigert, went on a heart breaking adventure. James Lovell, …show more content…

The Space Race was a 20th century competition between the soviet union And the United States for supremacy in spaceflight ability. The launch date for apollo 13 was originally in March of 1970 but later the launch date switched to april. During one of the countdown demonstrations the Kennedy Space Center encountered problems with the oxygen tanks in the service module. When the apollo 13 mission took off their main goal was to land in the Fra Mauro area on the moon. An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks crippled the spacecraft during the flight and the crew were forced to orbit the moon and return to earth without landing. The Apollo 13 mission was launched on April 11th in the year 1970. For the first few days of the flight the crew ran into a couple minor accidents, but Apollo 13 was looking like the smoothest flight of the program. They aborted the mission after 56 hours of flight due to an explosion in the oxygen tanks. “At 5 ½ minutes after liftoff John Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell felt a little vibration then the center engine of the S-II stage shut down two minutes early. This caused the remaining 4 engines to burn 34 seconds longer than planned, and the S-IVB third stage had to burn nine seconds longer to put Apollo 13 in orbit.” (nasa.gov) At 55 hours and 46 minutes the crew was finishing a live tv broadcast showing how well they were doing and how they comfortably lived. …show more content…

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

More about Apollo 13's Impact On Space Exploration

Open Document