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13 MORE Things That Saved Apollo 13, part 1: The Failed Oxygen Quantity Sensor
Apollo 13 images via NASA. Montage by Judy Schmidt.
In our original series 5 years ago on the “13 Things That Saved Apollo 13,” the first item we discussed was the timing of the explosion. As NASA engineer Jerry Woodfill told us, if the tank was going to rupture and the crew was going to survive the ordeal, the explosion couldn’t have happened at a better time.
An explosion earlier in the mission (assuming it would have occurred after Apollo 13 left Earth orbit) would have meant the distance and time to get back to Earth would have been so great that there wouldn’t have been sufficient power, water and oxygen for the crew to survive. An explosion later, perhaps after astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise had already descended to the lunar surface, and all three crew members wouldn’t have been able to use the lunar lander as a lifeboat. Additionally, the two spacecraft likely couldn’t have docked back together, and without the descent stage’s consumables left on the Moon (batteries, oxygen, etc.) that would have been a fruitless endeavor.
Now, for our first article in our subsequent series “13 MORE Things That Saved Apollo 13,” we’re going to revisit that timing, but look more in detail as to WHY the explosion happened when it did, and how it affected the rescue of the crew. The answer lies with the failure of a pressure sensor in Oxygen Tank 2, an issue unrelated to the uninsulated wires in the tank that caused the explosion.
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Read the rest of 13 MORE Things That Saved Apollo 13, part 1: The Failed Oxygen Quantity Sensor (1,816 words)
© nancy for Universe Today, 2015. |
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/119770/13-more-things-that-saved-apollo-13-part-1-the-failed-oxygen-quantity-sensor/
