“Houston, we have a problem.”
Five words spoken by Tom Hanks’ character, Commander Jim Lovell, in the 1995 film Apollo 13, decidedly begun the change in objective for the Apollo 13 lunar mission. This line would soon become known as one of Tom Hanks’ most famous spoken lines in his acting career, but for his character and the others in the film, it would make the lunar mission a matter of life and death. The story of Apollo 13 took place in 1970, revolving around the third lunar landing mission in the Apollo space program which infamously went awry. After an oxygen tank in the astronauts’ spacecraft exploded and damaged the lunar module, the astronauts were forced to abort the mission and find a way to get back home. Although the astronauts did return home safely, the following investigation into the mission revealed a series of “fateful encounters” that could have played a role into the failure of Apollo 13. The fateful encounters that were primarily blamed for Apollo 13’s failure were a last-minute change in crew
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lineup, damaged insulation on wires near the exploded tank, and an early shutdown of one of the engines shortly after launch. A “fateful encounter” is defined as an unplanned meeting of problem that changes the outcome of an event or destiny of a person. There were multiple unplanned problems that changed the outcome of Apollo 13. The first of these problems was a last minute change in the lineup of the mission’s crew. The Command Module Pilot for Apollo 13 was originally going to be T. Kenneth Mattingly II (played by Gary Sinise in the film). However, Mattingly was suspected by NASA to have rubella, and the flight surgeon demanded his replacement. Lovell, threatened with his position on the mission, reluctantly allowed NASA to replace Mattingly with Jack Swigert (played by Kevin Bacon). Later, when Swigert stirred the oxygen tanks during the mission, one exploded, damaging the module and causing the abortion of the mission. It was easy to blame Swigert for causing the explosion, but Lovell and NASA, among many other onlookers, chose instead to blame another fateful encounter. The second fateful encounter that caused the failure of Apollo 13 was discovered during the investigation of the spacecraft. The exploded oxygen tank was discovered to be connected to wiring with damages Teflon insulation. When the tanks were stirred, the damaged insulation caused the wires to short-circuit, igniting the insulation and causing the tank to explode, damaging the lunar module beyond quick repair. The damage to the insulation was caused by exceedingly high temperatures in and around the tank, melting the insulation and exposing the wires. The board of investigation created by NASA for the mission successfully recreated the explosion, proving this theory. After the investigation, the oxygen tank was redesigned to better withstand the high temperatures that melted the insulation. The third fateful encounter showed itself shortly after the launch of the Saturn V rocket.
An engine on the second stage of the rocket shut down about two minute early, causing a minor panic within the crew and the ground operators. However, the crew quickly compensated for the issue by letting the four outboard engines and the third-stage engine burn longer to get the rocket to Earth orbit. The early engine shutdown was later found to be caused by exceedingly severe vibrations which flexed the thrust frame by three inches. In response, the vehicle’s guidance system automatically shut down the engine. Vibrations had been seen on previous space mission, but they were the most severe on Apollo 13. Missions that followed implemented modifications to prevent such vibrations, and subsequently prevent another shutdown. Although it was unknown whether the shutdown had any relation to the explosion, it was a problem worth correcting to
NASA. These three fateful encounters could easily have been prevented by NASA had more information been known before the launch. For example, it was discovered after the mission that T. Kenneth Mattingly II did not have rubella, unlike what was previously thought. If the spacecraft was inspected before launch and one of the oxygen tanks was discovered to have damaged insulation, the mission would most likely have been postponed or even cancelled until the problem was solved. If NASA had the ability to test the engines, they might have been able to see the second-stage engine shut down early, and fix the problem. If these fateful encounters had been corrected before the launch, Jim Lovell, T. Kenneth Mattingly II, and Fred Haise may have gotten their chance to walk on the moon.
After the accident, Gene Krantz relied on the skills and expertise of his people. A successful leader builds a strong team, but a leader must be able to separate himself/herself from the team to make the best decision. In Apollo 13, Gene empowered his team to come up with a solution for the air scrubbers. By addressing the most critical problem first, he afforded the team time to work on the other problems. The scrubbers were the most critical or they all would have suffocated. By encouraging the team to share expertise and professional opinion and separates himself by taking it all into consideration when making the decision.
...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.
As a result of the successful mission that landed the first men on the moon, called the Apollo 11 mission, many people were inspired to provide commentary on this landing. Although these texts describe unique individual purposes about this landing, they all effectively support their purposes through the use of several rhetorical devices.
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.
All of the Apollo crews and mission control teams were well trained to operate under high-stress situations. All three crew members were previously test pilots, so they were all experienced in dealing with high-risk situations with no room for error. They were able to effectively communicate the problems they were experiencing back to the crew members in mission control. Both parties were able to communicate calmly and clearly, with little to no change in tone as the accident transpired. The ground crew members related all information to the flight crew, not withholding any information that they deemed pertinent to the
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.
Apollo 13 is a 1995 American space adventure film directed by Ron Howard. The film depicts astronauts Jim Lovell,
NASA has faced many tragedies during their time; but one can question if two of the tragedies were preventable by changing some critical decisions made by the organization. The investigation board looking at the decisions made for the space shuttle tragedies of the Columbia and Challenger noted that the “loss resulted as much from organizational as from technical failures” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 191). The two space shuttle tragedies were about twenty years apart, they both had technical failures but politics also played a factor in to these two tragedies.
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.
Though there have been many successes in human endeavors into space, success does not come without failure. Apollo 13 is the most famous mission next to Apollo 11 but for all the wrong reasons. It is most famously known for not landing on the moon due to complications mid-journey. Though technically the issues faced by Apollo 13 are a result of hardware malfunction, that malfunction can be attributed to issues within the decision making process involved.
Green, Nick. "Apollo 11 Mission - First Humans on the Moon." About.com Space / Astronomy. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
The plane was severely damaged – one of its two engines was broken off and the nosecone tore off the plane on during the crash. There was also an entanglement with power lines during the landing, which caused a blackout throughout the entire airport. Frightened passengers, underdressed for the Nova Scotia weather, ran out of the plane, some in shorts and t-shirts, terrified and bloodied. Some saw fuel coming out of the plane and had concerns about an explosion.
The morality of leadership in marine disasters is a contentious issue, with a variety of popular ideals having arisen from well-publicized maritime disasters such as the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. For instance, it is a commonly held belief that “women and children first” was the norm in ship evacuation, as Captain Smith demonstrated in his emergency procedure. However, the popularity of the Titanic disaster may have instigated the generalization that all ships tended to evacuate in a chivalry-based manner. This investigation seeks to determine whether there was an expected moral code in ship disasters, and if so, what it was. Specifically, this paper will focus on the wreck of the RMS Atlantic in Nova Scotia, in 1873.