Word: spacecraft
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...fifth mission to the moon was going well, and from more than 200,000 miles out in space Commander Jim Lovell had just wound up a televised tour of the spacecraft. "This is the crew of Apollo 13 wishing everyone there a nice evening," he said. "We're just about ready to close out our inspection of Aquarius and get back for a pleasant evening in Odyssey." Minutes later, the almost idyllic journey of Astronauts Lovell, Fred Haise and John Swigert turned into a heart-pounding nightmare...
Interrupting a conversation between Swigert and a ground controller at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Lovell suddenly said in a laconic voice: "I believe we've had a problem here." It was the understatement of the space age. Apollo 13 had been rocked by "a pretty large bang" from Odyssey's service module, which houses the spacecraft's main engine as well as most of its life-giving power and environmental systems. Almost immediately, the command module's instruments recorded a surge of electrical current followed by an alarming drop. On Odyssey's instrument panels, red and yellow warning...
...launch: the inboard engine of the Saturn rocket's second stage shut down two minutes prematurely. But the remaining four engines of the stage automatically compensated by firing 33 seconds longer than programmed, and the third-stage S-4B rocket burned an extra ten seconds to boost the spacecraft unerringly into earth orbit. Then, after 1½ revolutions of the earth, a five-minute blast from the S-4B sent the fifth U.S. manned lunar mission on a long glide toward the moon...
Swigert, too, will be left behind on Wednesday night, to orbit the moon in the command module Odyssey while Lovell and Haise make their scheduled descent in the lunar module Aquarius to land near Fra Mauro. Stopping 500 ft. or so west of their spacecraft on their first moon walk (see diagram), they will deploy a set of nuclear-powered experiments that should radio data to earth for at least a year. Their equipment will include two ingenious new devices to pry more secrets from the moon as well as the space around...
...fair-is a moon rock brought back by Apollo astronauts. The crowds are also taken with an Andy Granatelli turbocar and, in baseball-crazy Japan, by Babe Ruth's old Yankee uniform and locker. The space display is understated and effective. Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft, Gemini 12 and the command module of Apollo 8 are suspended just above visitors' heads; a lunar landing vehicle perches like a water bug near the moon rock. There is plenty of Pop art, courtesy of Andy Warhol and sundry American artists, but they have been upstaged...