...A Problem

Thirty-nine years ago today something went bang. The something was a tank of liquid oxygen aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft, which at that moment was speeding toward the Moon with three astronauts on board. Not a time or place for bangs.

The explosion crippled the Command/Service module combination, the spaceship which was supposed to carry the crew to and from Lunar orbit. They had to take refuge aboard the Lunar Module Aquarius, a cramped vehicle with about as much interior space as a closet and walls slightly thicker than aluminum foil.

By now everyone knows the saga of how they made it back safe and alive, even managing a pinpoint landing in sight of their recovery ship. The Tom Hanks/Ron Howard film from 1995 did an excellent and fairly accurate job of depicting the mission from start to finish. NASA has lots of stuff here.

There is an amusing consequence of the Apollo 13 accident. Space Shuttle missions were originally numbered STS-Whatever, where Whatever was the sequential number of the flight. This lasted from STS-1 in 1981 through STS-9 in 1983. Then, for some mysterious reason, the system changed. Flights were lettered by their order within a given fiscal year, so you had flights 41-B, -C, -D, and -G in 1984, 51-A through -J in 1985, 61-A and so on in 1986. Then Challenger blew up and Shuttle flights halted for a year and a half. When they resumed, with no explanation given, they reverted to the old numbering with STS-26. That system continues to this day.

The bizarre "fiscal year" numbering system seems like nothing but an excuse to not have an STS-13. Now I see that one of the Constellation series of "return to the Moon" missions will have the numbering Orion-13. I will bet a roast beef po-boy sandwich that if that mission ever flies NASA will come up with some reason to renumber it.

Comments

[Brian Rogers]

You mean the mission scheduled for friday, april 13th, 2013?

[Cambias]

Ha! We wish. It's not scheduled until 2019. Ominously, right now NASA doesn't have any launches at all planned in 2013.