When mission commandant James A. Lovell utter his bowel - wrick warning , “ Houston , we have a job , ” neither he nor the US Army of NASA engineers back on Earth really knew if his bunch would — or even could — make it back home .
In the 72 time of day that followed Apollo 13 ’s calamitous O tank blowup , NASA engineers run feverishly to find any room to somehow limp the damaged command module 200,000 miles back to Earth . But first , they had to organise a means of keeping the gang from pour down themselves with their own hint .
Turning off the lights
At 80:00 GET the situation with consumables looked stark . The PC+2 burn ensured that the Command Module would be on the water at 142:40 GET . But as it stood , 30 minutes after the hurry - up burn , the water provision was break away at 4.8lb / hr , with depletion projected at 126:06 GET . The oxygen consumption rate was down and would stretch to 253:00 GET , but at current levels of consumption at 37Ah the battery power would be go by 120:48 GET . Unresolved but being work on , the lithium hydrated oxide tin from Odyssey would somehow have to be strapped on to the hosepipe for Aquarius to slim atomic number 6 dioxide stage .
At no time since the crew power up Aquarius at 58:40 GET had the usance of electrical power dropped below 24.9Ah . The use of LM system , especially the PGNCS and other counsel and navigation equipment , had taken its toll , reaching 37.6Ah during PC+2 . Now , in the subsequent great power - down , role would have to come down to 10–12Ah . Because of the link between electric power and water consumption for the cooling system of rules , boil down superpower levels would lower temperatures and disregard water consumption from 4.8lb / hr ( 2.18kg / hr ) to 2.5lb / hr ( 1.13kg / hr ) , taking it out to 150:00 GET .
As things stood at this period , Aquarius would have to be powered up about 35–40Ah around 134:00 GET to top up the Odyssey ’s Command Module battery for re - entry after Aquarius was cut light , and for provide big businessman to the CM , getting it ready to support the crew when it was finally on its own shortly before entering the atmosphere . In sum-up , the moderate superpower levels since first getting into Aquarius , and the gamey power levels of the two engine burn , would be followed now by a very deep cut in electrical use for the next 52 hours before finally turn on the organisation again prior to re - debut . At NASA facilities and among the innkeeper of contractor and subcontractors now working across the land to solve myriad pocket-sized government issue regarding the consumables , a team at the Windsor Locks facility of Hamilton Standard were fathoming out whether they could use the 14.5 hours of water remaining in the Command Module to supplement the provision in Aquarius . The problem was that the water in Odyssey was chlorinate and that in Aquarius ’ environmental control system was not . Could the chlorinated water be used in the LM ’s sublimator ? Tests shew that it could .
Then Hamilton Standard ’s back pack manager Cal Beggs wreak up a method acting whereby the work party could remove this chlorinated water system from Odyssey into the supply in Aquarius . The Personal Life Support System or PLSS ( pronounced ‘ pliss ’ ) haversack were precharged with six hours of water supply for the Moonwalks . A team including James Morancey worked up a procedure whereby the PLSS water could be feed into the main supply in Aquarius , reversing the normal procedure for refill each PLSS for a second Moonwalk . Then they base a way to utilise the empty tank to ferry body of water from Odyssey , but with water consumption slashed these back - up technique were not postulate , although the engine driver even considered using urine to keep the coolant organisation going !
Aboard Aquarius and in conjunction with soil operations , power - down began within five minutes of the oddment of the PC+2 burning , and at 79:52 GET the background understand up a fairly complex operation for coiffe up a peaceful thermal dominance way . But problem with stabilising the barbecue roll prevail for more than an minute until finally resolved . During this period the gang report see sizeable chunks of rubble blow alongside the ballistic capsule , mayhap material loosen from the crippled Service Module by the vibrations of the PC+2 burn .
As Mission Control finally bang it would , the CO2 level reached 7.5mmHg at 80:30 GET , triggering a headmaster alarm , a level set pre - flight to advise the crew to modify the LiOH canister . But the aesculapian team advised the work party that it could safely run up to a concentration of 15mmHg without any obtrusive force and that when it reached that spirit level in about five hours they should change the primary canister shot for the secondary . After that the particular procedure for using Odyssey ’s canister could be implemented . In test a tier of 22mmHg could be endure , but nobody wanted to go that mellow .
As related earlier , there were not enough round - shaped canisters to last , and the more prolific public square - shaped pickup in Odyssey would have to be used in Aquarius — somehow ! By recent Tuesday , 14 April , as Lovell and Swigert were shortly to begin their sleep period , Beggs and around 100 mass at Hamilton Standard had been work on a result and kept up an intensive talks with the NASA multitude in Mission Control to get it formalise .
The original mind to make a improvised adapter admit the canisters from Odyssey to operate in Aquarius had been wear in the mind of a NASA railroad engineer who had exist and worked with the LM Environmental Control System ( ECS ) for several years . As foreman of the Crew Systems Division , Ed Smylie , together with his help Jim Correale , had been creditworthy for make out the purpose of all equipment concern to crowd activity , and from within hour of the news about the chance event he had concoct a direction of keeping the ambience clean . Working with the environmental test chamber in
Building 7 , Smylie and Correale had twinned LiOH case shot flown from Cape Canaveral to Houston , and by late afternoon on 14 April they had rigged up the test execute in Building 7 and attest that the arrangement work .
The crew would use tape measure and stiff wag , together with moldable bags and cleverness , to stack the satisfying canisters from Odyssey and attach them to hoses leading from the ECS in Aquarius on connection normally used to knock off up the astronauts ’ blank space suits . In this juryrigged concept , pollute oxygen would be drawn into the substantial cartridges and cancel of CO2 before circulating back into the LM ECS and fed out via a hose attached to the outlet that would normally be used to strip atomic number 8 from the suit .
In this rather complex system of boxes , hosiery and pipe , the LiOH tin receptacle would be get around , the oxygen scrubbed of pollute carbon dioxide out of doors , rather than inside , the ECS . A second inlet - outlet system would be rig up in Odyssey by extend hoses through the tunnel from Aquarius . At least , that was the idea . Smylie brought his ‘ letter box ’ , as it became known , up to Mission Control to show the escape restrainer what was needed . It would now have to be establish by the crew from assorted items found around Aquarius and Odyssey , but not just yet .
At 80:37 GET ( 9:50pm in Houston ) , Vance Brand read up to the crew the canonical idea and what was needed , in notably non - proficient language : ‘ We have a lengthy procedure here , but in short you use plastic as a covering for the whole thing . You put some kind of stiffener against the LiOH entrance side . You require grey tape to stick the whole affair together and you need something like a sock to put in the bottom so that the outlet side is secure up . As it turns out the flow is rather U - mould through the cartridge … If you punch up the bottom it comes in one side of the top and goes out the other . ’
Within 45 minutes Brand suggested the gang get something to exhaust before Lovell and Swigert began a eternal sleep period at around 82:00 GET , current power levels now coming down toward 12A , which would be achieved within three hours , lower than anything seen since the accident . A simple calculation ( P[W]=I[A]xV[v ] ) indicate that with a 28V DC current from the LM batteries , a 12Ah world power custom bring forth around 336W. Such was the storey of power running Aquarius — less than the power from four roof light bulbs in the medium home ; one third of the power demand to run a one - bar galvanising heater or a toaster !
At 81:46 GET , Brand read up a report that flight depth psychology after the PC+2 burn bespeak a demand for a further midcourse burn of 4–6ft / sec ( 1.22–1.83m / sec ) using the decline locomotive , and give Lovell a detailed summation on the consumables condition – what remain , how deep the power - down had to be and how long each of the premier assets would last . After that reappraisal it was time for Gene Kranz to step down , relinquish the console to Milt Windler and his Maroon Team and get back to Room 210 . That got under way at 82:00 GET – 11:13pm in Houston .
Before the fracture modification , Brand passed up a further message : ‘ Deke [ Slayton ] say get a night ’s slumber . He says you ’ve been working hard and you ought to loosen up a fiddling bit and be quick for tomorrow . ’ It was come up on midnight , a new sidereal day about to dawn – Wednesday 15 April . By midnight Swigert was finishing up a repast and Haise was completing final power - down dance step , while Lovell was already up in Odyssey preparing his bunk for the night .
On the cerebrovascular accident of midnight Houston time , Haise bring forth on to Jack Lousma at the Capcom console table : ‘ OK , when I was upstairs [ in Odyssey ] just a minute ago I notice what seem to be some new venting from down the Service Module means . I notice that out window 1 , and also meet one clink of metal – open metal about four in [ 10 curium ] square that was tumbling around – silver in colour and it look like it had amount from somewhere down in the Service Module … I’m looking out the LM windowpane now and I see a skilful part of the new star force field it ’s created for us . There are about a thousand footling sparklies out here . ’
At 12:35am , Gene Kranz , astronaut Anthony England , INCO William Peters and CONTROL ( control officer ) Richard Thorsen host a press conference in the primary auditorium in Building 1 , chaired by public affair military officer John McLeaish . From the outset , the press had been invite into all activity , and two pool correspondents were allowed to sit in the MOCR and observe what was in reality going on , report what they see .
The first 24 hr after the accident had been focused on getting Apollo 13 back on a free - reappearance flight , rounding the Moon and speeding up to cut the trans - Earth fourth dimension by ten hours . The second 24 hours would be spend powered down to the absolute minimum , rigging up the makeshift ‘ mailbox ’ for go on down CO2 levels . The third 24 hours would be put to refining the flight with a course fudge factor and getting the procedure ready to power up the Command Module for re - entry .
Excerpted with permit from Apollo 13 owner ’ Workshop Manual : An perceptiveness into the development , events and bequest of NASA ’s ‘ successful bankruptcy ’ which is available onAmazon .
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