Apollo 13: 3. Lifeboat

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Crippled by an explosion, Apollo 13's Command and Service Module Odyssey is bleeding to death.

In a matter of minutes, it will be out of power and oxygen, unflyable and uninhabitable.

The three men on board have had to give up on their dreams of going to the moon.

Now they're going to have to fight for their lives.

It is 57 hours into the mission, and it's been 83 minutes since the explosion.

Well, Econom, looks like we've got about 40 minutes left in that tank.

Okay, does it look like it's still going down?

That's affirmative, yes.

You're 200,000 miles out.

You're in a spacecraft that's dying.

Well, we don't have much time.

We were losing the whole electrical power system and the oxygen system of the command module of the mother ship.

From the BBC World Service, this is 13 Minutes to the Moon, season two.

I'm Kevin Fong, and this is the incredible story of the flight of Apollo 13, told by the people who flew it and saved it.

Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.

We've got more than a problem.

We lost O2 tank two pressure.

That can't be.

Let's make sure we don't blow the whole mission.

There's one whole side of that street missing.

That's the end right there.

Episode three.

Lifeboat.

All flight controllers, I'd suggest you start handing over because I think a fresh team is probably going to be thinking clearer.

I think the rest of the world.

Gene Krantz and his flight control team are retiring from their shift exhausted.

Taking over as flight director is Glynn Lunney.

At 33 years old, Lunney is the youngest of the flight directors, but he's also one of NASA's most experienced, having worked with the human spaceflight program since the days of the Mercury missions.

Amongst his peers, he's respected for his quiet calm and instinctive understanding of the Apollo spacecraft's complex systems.

Lunny has been in mission control, waiting anxiously in the wings, watching the drama unfold.

Now, as his team start to plug their headsets into consoles, it's his turn.

By the time I came on duty, I was aware that this was going to be a hell of a shift.

Hey, come, I don't like the way that O2 pressure is going down.

If you want to do something about these other reactant valves, let's make up our mind.

In many ways, Lunny has the hardest job of all.

Since the explosion, Krantz has successfully kept his team and the spacecraft together, eventually realizing the magnitude of the problem and that they're in serious trouble.

But Lunny inherits a near-impossible position, forced to troubleshoot countless failing systems in real time while still trying to understand precisely what has happened.

He is tasked with buying the crew some survival options and laying the groundwork for the long fight back.

But Lunny more than rose to the challenge.

Astronaut Ken Mattingly.

Glenn stepped in and the most magnificent display of personal leadership that I've ever seen.

The training that we went through

prepared us to deal with pretty severe problems and

we, you know, gradually found our problem to be pretty bad.

Flight directors are masters of understatement.

The command module is fatally wounded.

Oxygen is hemorrhaging into space.

In mission control the flight controllers are still trying to stem the flow looking for valves to close in a desperate attempt to try and isolate the leak.

We're ready to close and react for fuel cell one.

Is that right?

That's right, Fighter.

You ready for that now?

Sure, absolutely, huh?

You're still going down and it's not possible that thing is sort of bottoming out is it

Well the rate is slower, but we have a less pressure to so we would expect it to be a little bit slower

You are sure then you want to close it

Seems to me we have no choice boy

There's a finality to this When open the react valves allow the hydrogen and oxygen in Apollo 13's tanks to mix react and generate power in the fuel cells But in mission control they're still hunting the source of the leak.

They think it's possible that closing some of the react valves might stem the flow.

But once shut, these valves cannot be reopened.

Apollo 13 has three fuel cells.

Two of them are no longer producing electricity.

Krance's team has already shut off the react valve to one of them.

Closing another would leave only a single usable fuel cell left.

To Mission Control, it's akin to amputating limbs in a bid to save their patient.

To Commander Jim Lovell, who acknowledges the order, doubly so.

Listen to the resignation in his voice at the end of this exchange.

Okay 13, we verify that we want you to close down, shut down fuel cell one, close the react valve.

Even that last-ditch effort fails.

It's becoming all too obvious that the command module can't be saved.

But there is another, unrehearsed option.

To use Aquarius, the lunar module, as a lifeboat.

But the lunar module, or LEM, was only ever designed for the short trip from orbit around the moon down to the surface, and to accommodate only two astronauts, Lovell and Hayes.

It's barely fit for purpose.

But it's all they've got.

I guess it became fairly obvious fairly soon that we were going to have to power up the limb.

Merlin Merritt is the flight controller responsible for the lunar module's electrical and life support systems.

His call sign is TelMew.

Power up the lunar module to make it

a safe, you know, habitable volume, make it a lifeboat, if you will,

for the crew.

Because

the command module is going to lose all its power and it would soon, you know, just be a, I call it a cold, clammy pit.

In In the dying spacecraft, oxygen pressure is still dropping.

And Lunny reaches out to see if anyone has solutions before they accept defeat and turn to the lunar module as their last resort.

Let me ask you now: is there anything you want to do trying to pump up the other tank or anything?

Are you satisfied that both of these tanks are going down and we're past helping them?

Even with batteries?

That's what I'm getting at.

We were losing the whole electrical power system and oxygen system of the command module of the mothership.

So yeah, this was

quite a drastic turn.

About all we can do is tire down and let Heat League help us out,

which is probably going to be trivial.

There's nothing else you want to try.

Survival depends now on an option that is not in the Apollo flight manual.

Move all three crew members into the lunar module and let them shelter there for their long journey back to Earth.

This is as close to a leap of faith as NASA will ever make.

Mission operations are supposed to run on rule books, carefully prepared checklists with well-rehearsed procedures.

Improvisation is something to be wary of.

Here's Glyn Lunney calmly marshalling his young flight team and trying to lead them through this uncertainty.

Is there anything uh uh simple that we can refer the crew to?

Uh to get them thinking about using the lamb here.

Have you got anything in the checklist paperwork to describe to them what your intentions are?

Negative, there's nothing documented in contingency.

We're thinking about using the limb as a lifeboat.

We have some procedures here on the ground though.

I'm sure you do.

What do they amount to?

Flying with the tunnel open,

Raj, just a limb, low power load, supplying power to the CSM.

LaddyCon, looks like we've got about 40 minutes left in that tank.

Okay, does it look like it's still going down?

That's affirmative, yes.

It's slowly going to zero and

we're starting to think about Lamb lifeboat.

In mission control, clusters of flight controllers begin their separate races against time.

One team is trying to get the lunar module systems powered up to receive the astronauts before the command module finally dies.

Okay, we've got an update on the time.

Looks like we've got about 18 minutes until we get down to 100 psi and that's sort of the cutoff point.

Another team is attempting to shut the command module down to try and preserve what's left of its oxygen and its precious battery-driven power supply.

While Aquarius might be lifeboat enough to get them back to Earth, they'll still need to rely on the sturdy command module, its heat shield and its parachutes for re-entry.

And all of those systems depend upon three vital batteries.

Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Hayes.

Three small 44 amp hour batteries that the command module had that was to get you through entry.

Because

in normal entry, when you separated the service module, you separated the fuel cells.

So you were dependent on those three batteries to get you through the whole entry process.

But in the dying command module, these vital re-entry batteries are rapidly being used up.

Flight controller John Aaron has just arrived in mission control, having been called in to back up the team.

He doesn't like what he sees.

They were using the re-entry batteries as the fuel cells fail.

They made the decision, we got to keep working this problem.

So

let's place the entry batteries on the buses and use those to sustain this command and service module while we figure this thing out.

Captain, we're going to be out of power and CSM in 15 minutes.

And so here you are.

The command module is bleeding to death.

It's using the battery power it needs to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

And you're saying you've got to shut it down.

Yes.

Now, I hadn't said that.

I could tell right ready that Mother Nature was going to shut it down for us.

There are just 15 minutes left.

The command module isn't quite shut down.

The lunar module isn't quite ready.

But listen here to Flight Director Glynn Lunney.

under all that pressure leading his team through this perilous period.

We We want him to start getting the tunnel clear and getting ready to get over there and power up to Lamb as soon as they can.

They ought to send somebody over there.

We're going to lose power in the buses now.

What do you want to switch off?

But there is more to it than power alone.

Having a lifeboat to survive in is one thing, but you also have to be able to find your way home.

And for that, the crew had to pay attention to the guidance platform.

Tell me your guidance and

No, no, no.

Do you know its orientation?

That's affirmative.

This is Lunny tackling a new problem with his flight controllers, this time about the guidance platform.

And like everything else, it's a can of worms.

The guidance platform on the Apollo spacecraft is a complex device which working with the onboard computer, enables the crew and mission control to know where they are in space and which direction the spacecraft is pointed.

It's also known as the Inertial Measurement Unit, or IMU, and there's one for the command module and another in the lunar module.

You cannot understate its importance in keeping the astronauts from getting lost in space.

You can think of the platform as a three-dimensional compass needle, providing each spacecraft with a kind of true north.

But for the guidance platform to work, it needs to be properly aligned, calibrated against fixed points in space, specific stars in particular constellations.

And to do that, the astronauts ideally needed to maneuver the vehicle and find some stars through a special telescope, known as the AOT, mounted through the roof of the lunar module.

But Lunny has realized that it's going to be a problem to do an alignment while they're still docked to the command module and while the debris from the explosion is floating around.

He asks his flight controllers for recommendations.

Guidance, control, and tell me.

The point is, they'll have a hell of a time getting the platform aligned in the Lambeth AOT.

I agree, Flight.

I agree too, Flight.

Okay, what should we tell them to do?

In the spacecraft, Jim Lovell thinks he might have a solution.

Instead of using the telescope to align the guidance platform in the lunar module, he suggests that they copy the information directly from the command module's computer.

The real thing which I thought about,

and I don't think the Mission Control thought about this, you know, was the fact that we had to change the guidance system

that was in the command service module.

because the guidance system in the lunar module was powered down.

So we had to get the parameters, the XYZ parameters from the powered up command module as it was starting to die because of the lack of oxygen over into the lunar module.

And that's the plan you can hear Mission Control putting into action here.

But they're running out of time and things are getting tense.

We've got to go ahead and do a 52 first in the CSM to get it.

That's what I'm asking you to do.

Well, do you have one now?

We don't have much time.

Do you have a good one now, as far as you know?

A good alignment?

Yeah, that's what I'm asking.

Do you have a good alignment?

And with the navigation and guidance problem barely under control, what Lunny hears next comes as a real body blow.

Okay, we need to open up the surge tank with the manifold pressure dropping.

The oxygen level in the remaining main tank is now dangerously low.

Not just for power, but for the crew to breathe.

There's a reserve of oxygen in the command module, in what's called the surge tank, but this is needed for re-entry.

It must be saved for later, but to stay alive, they need it now.

Just to spoil my image of always being under control, it was the first time on my shift that I had a little time to think about what was going on.

I must admit that I ended up having a like a deep hole feeling.

It was part part of I guess being a human being to have that happen to you.

Uh

okay wouldn't you rather power that from the LAM or bump that up in the LAM?

Did it catch you by surprise?

Because I imagine you had never experienced anything like that while on console before and you never experienced anything like it afterwards.

Did it surprise you that you had that moment?

I don't know that it surprised me, but I

realized that it was something that we that I hadn't had to deal with before.

So

it was more a matter of that and getting myself under control where I wanted to be, getting that done.

And I guess that's really one of the subsystems and the vehicle that

we all count on is our ability to cope with things that are coming at you.

And you have to deal with it and you have to keep it under control.

And that's basically what I did in that few seconds.

And I think

probably everybody had a moment where they wondered how this was going to turn out.

And that was my moment.

Meanwhile, Lovell is feverishly transferring the orientation data, crucial information that tells the module what direction it's pointing in.

None of this was perfect, but the numbers from the command module would at least give the lunar module an approximate, very coarse alignment.

This was far from simple.

The numbers had to be copied by hand from the command module computer, carried across to the lunar module and then manually entered into the computer there.

And as if that were not cumbersome enough, Lovell had to do some arithmetic to compensate for the difference in position between the two vehicles.

Any errors there, and they would wind up lost in space, orientated in the wrong direction.

So we had to get the parameters from the powered up command module as it was starting to die because of the lack of oxygen over into the lunar module.

And that's what we had to do and Swiker was in there giving me the angles

and I had one set of angles, then I had another where I had to add or subtract to get the proper ones for the lunar module.

I asked the ground, check my arithmetic, make sure that I'm doing things rightly, you know, make so I didn't make a mistake.

Guidance has that arithmetic.

It looks good.

The arithmetic is go.

Roger, kept down.

The arithmetic's good.

The orientation data have been copied across.

Lunny can save the oxygen in the surge tanks if he can get the lunar module's own oxygen systems powered up quickly.

It's time now to pull the plug on the command module.

The last circuit broker to be pulled was the Immersion Measurement Unit circuit broker.

This is a critical moment.

The IMU at the heart of the command module's guidance and navigation system was never designed to be turned off in space.

Mission control has no procedure for switching it back on again.

Indeed, there is no guarantee they will ever be able to switch it back on.

And without it, the crew won't be able to steer the command module precisely enough to get back to Earth and enter its atmosphere at exactly the right angle.

There are so many unknowns, so much that could go wrong, but as John Aaron explains, it was the best and only solution they had.

I had to protect the IMU as we powered every stuff down.

If you pull that Zuckerberger, that IMU may never work again.

We pulled that Circuitberger.

That wasn't any option.

Powering up the lunar module is the next massive challenge.

In In theory, this should take up to two hours going through the checklists.

It's two hours they haven't got.

Merlin Merritt.

My role was to, on our team, was to generate a procedure, you know, to power up, bring up the lunar module in an organized manner.

It's not just a matter of throwing a switch.

Mission Control needed to get every ounce of performance they could from the lunar module, and that meant pushing it beyond its limits.

To do that they would have to go back to Grumman Aerospace and talk to the people who had actually built the spacecraft.

Grumman engineer John Devaney posted on site at NASA in Houston got the call.

Well see that you've got to remember they had thought up every possible problem and they had these mission rules that

were in their manuals.

Now in there were all kinds of

really limits, red limits that you couldn't exceed.

There were red lines.

And we had to tell them, change all those red lines that you're thinking about.

You have to shut this off.

You have to shut it off.

You, as the contractor who's built the lunar module, is being approached by the flight controllers who are saying, look, your instruction manual says we can't do these things.

And you're turning around saying, forget that, we wrote that book.

You can do it.

Exactly.

How heated do these discussions get between you and the flight control?

Very, very, very, very, very heated.

And

they don't talk about them too much, but it got very heated because you've got to remember, like I say,

they didn't have all the off-nominal testing that we had.

We had all these testings that almost did destruction on some of the equipment so that we knew the ultimate conditions that these equipment could work under.

But they didn't have that knowledge.

We want you to start getting over in the limb and getting some power on that.

And you ready to copy a procedure?

Okay.

Okay, in the CSM on panel five.

Circuit breakers lamb power.

One and two open.

Then limb power switch, reset and release.

In the lamb.

For the TV broadcast, which had happened only two hours before, when they were still on course for the moon, Fred Hayes had gone through to the lunar module for the benefit of the cameras.

Now he's returning to the same place a lot earlier than expected.

Didn't think I'd be back this soon.

According to the procedure that you hit the track

Roger, we copy that's where we want to be, Jim.

All they have now is their lifeboat, the Lunar Module.

Lunar Module pilot Fred Hayes and Senior Flight Dynamics Officer Jerry Bostick.

Jack completely powered down the command module.

It was dead.

Just another miracle of Apollo 13 is they turned the command module off.

Turned it off, you know, in flight.

And that way it was not designed to do that.

Now installed in their lunar module, Jim Lovell is wrestling with its controls, trying to get it stable.

But that too is proving to be a huge challenge.

It was never designed to be flown like this, with the lunar module pushing the command module.

It was like trying to reverse a car down the highway with a 15-ton trailer attached to it.

We had attached to the lunar module a 60,000 pound dead mass, the command service module.

Now the lunar module maneuvers around by itself because the little attitude thrusters fire through the center of gravity.

That's why when you push it one way, it goes that way.

But now the center of gravity is not in the center of the lunar module.

It's out to the command service module someplace.

Therefore, when I first started to maneuver, I didn't realize this.

and I wanted to go left,

it went to some other place.

Why the hell are we maneuvering at all, man?

Are we still bending?

Well, we're at home for once.

I mean, we're a bit of impulse.

No, I mean, why can't you know I'm out somewhere?

Every time I try to,

I can't take that dog on rollout.

I want to go right, I want to go up, go on again.

What's going on here?

Then it dawned on me that we had this command service module.

I literally had to learn how to maneuver all over again.

That's what you need to play with.

Okay, we'll try that.

Let me get around, though.

Let's roll.

Let me let's let it roll all the way.

Yeah, you can let it roll all the way.

I know, I know.

But I mean, okay, that's all I thought.

Compared to the slick and neatly finished command module with its three couches and room enough for the whole crew, the lunar module seemed comparatively cramped and basic.

For Swigert, it was a new and unnerving experience.

Remarkably,

Jack had never been in the lunar module.

A real one, I mean, in flight.

Or certainly not in flight, obviously, but not on the ground.

I mean, he had never been in the lunar module.

He was the command module expert.

And

so he what concerned him was the limb

in comparison has no inner walls, netting material just sort of keeps you from bumping in the wiring bundles and plumbing.

And it's noisy, comparatively speaking, to the command module, which is built like a battleship to survive entry and

launch.

And

I think that

for whatever reason, the glycol cooling system

made occasional gurgles

and

the pump ran at different frequencies.

It was kind of whined

and he was he never heard that before and when he questioned one question he asked was

do you think this thing will make it?

With the lunar module's life support systems powered up attention now turns to focus on how to get back to Earth.

Apollo 13 is currently still on a course designed to get them to the surface of the moon, and its current trajectory won't get them back home.

If they do nothing, they'll eventually swing past the moon, but then miss the Earth by thousands of miles.

They have to take action.

They could choose to turn around and come back directly, reversing their path before they reach the moon.

But that option, the direct return, would need the powerful thrust of the command and service module's main engine and that is plagued with problems.

For such a drastic maneuver they would have to burn the engine until its fuel was almost exhausted leaving them little opportunity to correct their trajectory later if needed.

Worse still, no one can be sure that the main engine on the service module hasn't been damaged by the explosion, which happened in the same section of the spacecraft.

The only other option then is to continue forward, but make a small course correction exploiting a path that would take them round the moon and right back to Earth.

This would require very little thrust, using gravity to get them home like a skateboarder turning round at the top of a steep ramp.

But that isn't without challenges.

For a start that would take much longer to get back to Earth, threatening their precious supply of consumables, things like oxygen, water, food and electrical power.

And if they're to do it, they have to make that course correction urgently, firing the lunar module's descent engine briefly but precisely to put them on this so-called free return trajectory.

Flight Dynamics Officer Jerry Bostick was responsible for that decision.

That was kind of a given.

There were no other options.

And the main thing was to get to a free return trajectory.

You know, let's bring this thing headed back to the Earth.

At that point, we thought that we could do that maneuver without a problem, but

you've just had a big explosion and you don't know what caused it.

Are there

other problems?

Poppy Northcutt, retro support on Apollo 13.

You had people all over the world working on trying to solve that problem.

We powered up the limb at about 10.50 in the evening on April 13th.

This is George Kalen, a software engineer from MIT, the contractor which designed and built the Apollo spacecraft's guidance and navigation system.

During Apollo 13, Kalin is working with NASA in Houston, providing expertise on the computer's control of the critical engine burn.

The burn was scheduled for about 2.30 to 2.45

on Tuesday, April 14th in the morning, which is only about three and a half hours away.

We did it in time, and yes, we developed the test procedures and tested them and got them up to the astronauts in time for the burn.

We made that decision in a few hours, and I know the group that was in the control center when we did it.

Dave Reed, Flight Dynamics Officer, whose job it was to track the spacecraft and compute the maneuvers to get it on the right flight path.

They asked both myself and my retrofire officer Chuck Dietrich, you know, what is your recommendation?

Chuck and I had been through the numbers of both options and we said you really in our mind, sir, don't have many options but to just go back around the the moon and do a free return.

And within,

I don't know, an hour or so consideration, we had to make a decision, and they did.

That's what NASA was good at, and that's what we did.

So, how do you feel about

making a 16-foot-per-second burn in 37 minutes?

Well, we'll give it a try, Jack, and that's all we got.

That's a 16-foot-per-second tip burn in 37 minutes.

Roger, we're working on a pick.

It's remarkable to me just how many critical decisions had to be made and actioned in the opening few hours after the explosion.

Now, Mission Control scrambles to make the calculations and read up a set of procedures to the crew.

The all-important free return burn happens five hours and 33 minutes after the accident.

Okay, you said burn complete.

Now we have to talk about power down and what do you want want us to do with the

things?

Roger, we're looking at that right now.

You made a bunch of crew.

And yet again, one set of problems is exchanged for another.

Dave Reed.

The problem now becomes one of survival of the crew.

They've got a limited amount of power.

A lunar module was designed to hold two people for three days, not three people for five days.

So all of a sudden, you've got limitations.

You've got limitations on water.

The water that the crew would normally have been drinking would come from the fuel cells.

That's where they would get potable water in the command officer.

Well the fuel cells aren't working.

You haven't got water.

Now you have to ration the crew.

They were rationed to a half a cup a day.

The lunar module itself needs water to function safely.

In fact, most of the spacecraft's water reserves are needed to prevent it from overheating.

The water comes under the remit of Merlin Merritt.

You had to have a certain amount of water for cooling.

You know, the electrical components heat up, generate heat, and in those days you had to circulate this coolant water to cool the vehicle.

So the consumer was primarily the power and the water system.

We elected to go with a free return

around the moon itself.

So, you know, you're looking at three and a half days or so to get back, and you only have enough power for a day or a little more.

Our initial reaction, or the reaction of the room, we were going to run out of, at those levels, we were going to be about 36 hours short.

Because of this, Merlin Merritt takes things into his own hands.

For him, the information is too important to be relayed over the mission control intercom.

He takes off his headset, leaves his station, and strides up to Flight Director Glen Lunney to make his point directly.

Power on the LEM has to be preserved if they're to have any chance at all.

And to do that, they need to turn off almost everything, including the Lunar Module's critical guidance computer.

The flight director was only one row up from me, and I went up and said, Hey, Glenn, if we don't power down immediately, pretty quickly, we're not going to make it.

And so Glenn said, okay, let me see your data.

You know, everything revolves around, you know, from an engineering perspective, your data.

So I went back and plugged back in and showed him our plots.

And Glenn, of course, being a very perceptive engineer, said, yeah, okay, this is what it looks like, but we've got these other things we have to consider.

Don't go and shut the thing down just because you can.

Let us take our time and figure out what it is we're going to do and then what do we have to do to do that.

And

it took people, it took a little bit in the case of some of the Lem guys to come on back from the brink and let's figure out what we're going to do before we power it down.

And their problems are far from over.

The debris from the explosion is coasting along with the spacecraft.

Particles swarm and sparkle in the sunlight outside their windows.

This is a problem.

They only know roughly which way the spacecraft is pointing right now.

But they'll need to be much surer of their alignment to guide future critical maneuvers.

And for that, they'll need to be able to see the stars.

But right now, because of the twinkling debris outside, they can't.

Roger, as soon as you get a chance to

or in your position to

take a look, we'd like to know if you can see stars for alignment purposes.

Okay, I'm looking out of Fred's window.

I see a lot of particles out there, but a lot of stuff is still drifting away from us, but a lot of it is flashing in the

local vicinity, and I don't recognize any gentle latitudes right now.

The crew of Apollo 13 is aboard their cramped lifeboat, coasting blind in space, still trying to find their way home.

On Earth, day is breaking in Houston.

Jim Lovell's wife Marilyn has hardly slept since the explosion ten hours earlier.

Her night has been disturbed by the doom-laden coverage on the television news.

Marilyn puts a call into the Mission Control Center.

She wants to know in the bluntest terms what her husband's chances are.

And like all conversations patched into Mission Control, the telephone call is recorded by NASA.

Marilyn is connected first to Jim's astronaut colleague, Ken Mattingly.

Hello.

Hello, Marilyn.

This is Ken.

Hi, listen, Ken.

I'm naturally concerned.

And I thought maybe you were the best person to talk to.

How are things look this morning?

They don't even know what's going on because they went to sleep before all this came up last night.

And I was wondering what I could tell them as far as,

in other words, are we really pretty safe right now?

Yeah, I think it looks pretty fair.

Now we got the first mid-course correction off.

watch puts them on uh they're now on a free return trajectory.

Yeah, well I didn't go to bed until I think it was four and I got up at five, so I really haven't had much sleep.

But anyway, I uh I was just wondering, uh what is this next burn and what time is that?

Okay, uh, the time this is the Lovell's fourth mission.

Marilyn is in many ways a veteran of spaceflight herself, and desperate to be kept informed, she interrogates Mattingly in detail.

What engine do they use?

They use a limb engine?

Yes, ma'am.

They do.

Right, and it's the same one that we just made the first mid-course correction on, and it worked like a jam.

Yeah, so we know that works.

Yeah, okay, well, y'all keep me posted, okay?

Sure, well, I uh I had a call you, but I realized how late it was.

I didn't want to.

Yeah, well, I've been up all night.

I haven't been able to sleep, it's been a nightmare.

Okay, listen, uh, Deke would like to speak to you.

Okay, thank you, Ken.

Sure thing.

I'll call you later.

Yeah, bye-bye.

Deke is Deke Slayton, the head of NASA's astronaut office, and Jim Lovell's boss.

Hello.

Hello, Deke.

What a nightmare.

Well, it could be a lot worse.

Yeah, right.

You listen to TV and you just can't believe everything they say.

Yeah, that's for sure.

No, we're, I think we're in reasonably good shape here.

We've got a few aces in the hole yet.

As a mother, Marilyn Lovell has been wrestling with how to break the news to her children.

She decides to do her best to shield them from it.

The Lovell's youngest daughter, Susan, was just 11 years old at the time.

I didn't know that this explosion had really happened.

I had no idea that dad was in any danger.

And I was at school, I must have been middle school, I don't really remember exactly how old.

A boy came up to me out in the hall, and he said, I am so sorry that your father's going to die.

Their eldest son, Jay, was 15 years old.

At that time,

since I was in military school, I had obligations there.

It was my high school.

Your schoolmates, your friends around you, how were they reacting?

Most of them, cool.

But there was a few of them that were jerks.

I actually had a physics teacher who pulled me aside in the MS hall and said, don't worry, everything's okay.

It's all fake anyhow.

And I just looked at him

and I said, you're a physics teacher.

And I turned around and walked away.

The next day,

we have a split-level home, or we had a split-level home.

So you could sit on the stairs, and there was like an opening.

And Father Raish was sitting on the coffee table, and around the coffee table were all my mother's friends and all these astronaut wives sitting on the floor.

They were all praying for my dad, and you know, that he would get home and that he would, you know, get home safely.

And it was at that point that I was like, oh my gosh, he really is going to die.

You have to realize you're 200,000 miles out.

You're in a spacecraft that's dying.

Landing on the moon was the last thing in my mind.

As a matter of fact, during the conversation back to the earth,

as we're preparing all these things to get us back, I looked over at Fred.

I said, take a good look out there.

It's going to be a long time before someone else is out here looking at what we're seeing.

And of course, you know, that really,

you know,

mission control and everybody said, oh, why did he say that?

Oh, no, no.

Actually, it was a very good chance that I was going to be right.

Did you think that you may not survive this mission?

I had a very good idea that we weren't going to survive.

13 Minutes to the Moon is an original podcast from the BBC World Service.

Search for the BBC World Service on YouTube and you'll find a film with Marilyn and the Lovell family talking about what they went through while watching the mission unfold.

And for more photos from those nail-biting days in 1970, go to bbcworldservice.com slash 13 minutes.

This episode is written by me, Kevin Fong, and producer Mark Rickards.

In the trench with us is series editor Rami Zabar.

Our theme music is by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg.

Technical production is by Sue Mayott, John Bolland, and Giles Aspen, and our story editor is Catherine Winter of In the Dark at APM Reports.

Thanks to NASA and the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project for the archive interview with Ken Mattingly.

Additional thanks to Simon Plumpton and Issa Seng for their help with the mission audio.

We'd love it if you shared this podcast with your friends.

On social media, our hashtag is 13 Minutes to the Moon.

And where you can, please do leave ratings and reviews in your podcast app.

The World Service podcast editor is John Minnell, and the senior podcast producer is Rachel Simpson.

And thanks to our digital team.

Hi there, I'm Rachel Simpson from the BBC World Service podcast team.

And before you go, I just wanted to tell you about another podcast from the same team behind 13 Minutes to the Moon.

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Each week, the Crowd Science Podcast answers your questions about life, Earth, and the universe.

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