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.
Read the full entry
Apollo 13
April 15, 1970
The temperature inside Apollo 13 is down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. The crew cannot sleep properly. They're dehydrated — rationing water. They're running on fumes and determination and the people at Mission Control who will not give up on them. One more day.
Read the full entry
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.
Read the full entry
Apollo 13
April 13, 1970
Something went very wrong on Apollo 13 tonight. An oxygen tank exploded 200,000 miles from Earth. Two of the three fuel cells are dead. The service module is venting into space. Three men are in a crippled spacecraft on the way to the Moon and nobody knows yet if they…
Read the full entry
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…
Read the full entry
Apollo 8
December 21, 1968
Apollo 8 launched this morning and they are not going to Earth orbit. They are going to the Moon. Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders are riding the Saturn V to lunar orbit. For the first time in history, human beings are leaving Earth to go to another world.…
Read the full entry
Gemini
December 15, 1965
Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 rendezvoused in orbit yesterday — two American spacecraft flying within a foot of each other, 185 miles above Earth. Nobody has ever done anything like this. The pilots waved at each other through their windows. I couldn't understand why I was so moved until Betty…
Read the full entry