The Apollo 13 explosion creates inspiring lessons on the risks of space travel

Rating: 8/10 (13 February 2011)

It was 1970. Apollo 13's mission was to repeat what the astronauts at Apollo 11 did---go to the moon and go back successfully.
The blast-off was normal and the series of separations just before they reached space were also good. As they reached about 80,000 miles or so into space, one of the astronauts tries to stir the fuel tanks with just a press of one button. Little did they realize that this action would mean a precarious event is going to hit not only the spacecraft of Apollo 11--but also threaten the lives of the astronauts inside it.
It started with a main explosion of a fuel tank, and then, subsequent shakes and booms. There are reports of fuel tanks having undervoltage, and not until about 10 minutes later, does astronaut Jim Lowell (played by Tom Hanks) visually realize that at least one oxygen tank is spewing out oxygen. He is the first to realize that there was a major leak in one of the fuel tanks of the command module.
They now realize that they have to follow Mission Control commands in Houston, because Lowell is telling the two other astronauts that they have to shut down the power to the command module, or the "Odyssey", as they call in the movie. And Lowell is the first to tell those other Apollo 11 astronauts probably one of the most famous quotes..."We've just lost the moon." Not just the other famous quote, "Houston, we have a problem!" Later on, Mission Control specialists tell the astronauts that they need to shut down the command module's power, which they do, and they had to move the LEM--or the lunar extraction module (or "lunar module" for short), which is nicknamed "Aquarius." Then, now that the landing of the moon had been scraped, the astronauts had to make a controlled burn around the moon in a slingshot action almost similar to that burn-around you may have seen in the movie "Armeggeddon." Yes, using lunar gravity to speed-up the trip back to Earth.
The burn is successful, but they need to save much needed power, so they shut down power to the LEM, which includes shutting down heat to it, so that means they have to freeze a little bit in order to have a safe trip for a good geodesic entry towards Earth.
Then more problems. Readings on the LEM indicate that the carbon dioxide levels are rising to toxic levels...meaning that the astronauts could suffocate in minutes. Mission Control finally finds a bizarre procedure to knock those high levels of C02 back to the non-danger zone. It was tense as the astronauts started to cough. But eventually, the astronauts finally fix the problem...they can breathe again.
Now, the geodesic re-entry is in 2 steps--very difficult. First, they do the retro-burn about 70,000 miles towards earth and their trajectory towards earth eventually goes quite good. Now, because the command module only has the heat shield, and power to the module can only have several amps, they had to separate first the Odyssey (the LEM) and the Aquarius (the service module). After Aquarius goes away from the command module, Lowell realized the big damage in the Aquarius' fuel tank.
Now, the second step for the good geodesic re-entry to earth depends on the command module's heat shield as they head towards splashdown. A failure of the heat shield would mean incinerating death for the 3 astronauts. Temperatures on re-entry outside can be as high as 2000 to 3000F. The whole world was on pins and needles as the command module heated up as the craft went through the earth's atmosphere...but then, as the craft splashed down with already-opened parachutes in the ocean and word spread that the craft survived re-entry, Lowell was the real hero.
As well as the two other astronauts! And even more--Lowell's mother was overjoyed about the near-disaster now coming to an end for Apollo 11 for good!!