Thunderf00t

Apollo 13 the FULL story: Part 3: The Seeds of Disaster!

Added 2021-07-28 11:45:04 +0000 UTC

REALLY sorry for late getting this up! Big announcement/ video up today :-)

Its really interesting just how minor the error was that led to the Apollo 13 disaster. It really was as simple as trying to get the liquid oxygen out of the tanks with a broken/ dislodged siphon tube. They tried several ways of getting the oxygen out, just blowing it, heating it then venting it rapidly, and eventually they just turned the heaters on and let the oxygen boil off. You have to have some sympathy for them in doing this, in the tests on the oxygen tank were done during the day, and by the time they decided to just try and boil the oxygen out, it was midnight, and by the time they gave up on this and decided to try something different, it was 4 in the morning!

However it was this decision that led to the damage of the wiring that eventually, a few weeks later, lead to the Apollo 13 service module losing all of its power generating capability and its breathable oxygen!