Apollo 13
April 17, 1970
Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific today. Three parachutes. Three men alive. Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise are home. When the parachutes deployed and the capsule hit the water, Betty cried. I wasn't far behind. Six days of this. They made it.
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Apollo 13
April 14, 1970
The crew of Apollo 13 has moved into the Lunar Module Aquarius. It's a lifeboat. Designed for two men, two days. Three men, four days. Mission Control is rewriting every procedure in real time. I called in sick to work. I cannot leave the radio.
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Apollo 13
April 11, 1970
Apollo 13 launched today and the newspapers barely mentioned it. "Routine Moon mission," one headline said. Routine! I watched from home and felt obscurely offended on behalf of the crew. Three men are riding a Saturn V to another world. Nothing about this is routine. We've forgotten how hard this…
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