Sunday, April 03, 2005

Houston, We've had a problem

It was 13.13 hrs in Houston on April 11, 1970. Apollo 13, bearing astronauts James Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, FL.

Two days later, on April 13, Apollo 13 would take its three occupants on the ride of their life. Almost 35 years later, especially considering the recent ill-fated Columbia space-shuttle mission, this harrowing mission and the escape of the astronauts only serves to heighten the dangers of space missions, and that further underscores the bravery, and the daring-do of the men and women involved.

### Courtesy NASA here is a report by James Lovell, one of the three.

3 comments:

Narayanan Venkitu said...

Truely amazing how they worked together and brought it back to earth..

I enjoyed watching the movie of Apollo-13 as well.

Its true - The dangers of space missions. I wonder sometimes if it is really worth it?

Nth Dimension said...

Uday,

Yeah, it is indeed amazing that they managed to salvage the mission. But, as the investigation points out, too many human errors contributed to it. And on such critical missions, cutting corners and costs is not the way to go.

Nth Dimension said...

Narayanan,

While the dangers of space missions are always present, we cannot stop investigating and researching the world around us.

Without delving into too much philosophics, I will say that without investigating the world around us, we can as well be zombies just living out the life.