Apollo 13 alums recall 'fun' mission

[n2doc]

Apollo 13 flight directors Gerald Griffin, center, and Milton Wendler, right, joke with commander James Lovell, left, at the Adler Planetarium on Monday. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the flight, which took place April 11-17, 1970, the Adler reunited two surviving mission astronauts and three key ground control leaders. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune / April 12, 2010)

By William Mullen
Tribune staff reporter
12:56 p.m. CDT, April 13, 2010


Being trapped in a severely damaged space ship a quarter million miles from home while hurtling away from Earth at 3,000 miles an hour is an undeniably harrowing experience. But for two astronauts who survived that scenario and three ground crew gurus who got them out of the pickle, it was something else, too.

"Fun."

Observing the 40th anniversary this week of the April 11-17, 1970, Apollo 13 mission to the moon, the Adler Planetarium reunited two of the mission's three astronauts, James Lovell and Fred Haise, and three of the mission's ground crew flight directors, Gene Kranz, Gerald Griffin and Milton Windler.

Calling five men in their late 70s and early 80s "swashbucklers" might be a stretch, but Monday night the five space veterans, all still trim and fit, displayed the early space program's swashbuckling élan as they held a panel discussion before an audience of more than a thousand persons at a sold-out event at the Chicago Hilton Hotel.

"This was a hoot, and they paid us to do it," Griffin said of the mission, as he and his comrades gave a blow-by-blow account of the drama of the Apollo 13 mission.


more

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-100413apollo-13,0,156022.story

[applegrove]

1. I just heard yesterday that some of the calculations that were done to save Apollo 13

were done by engineers at the university of Toronto. I guess they farmed out some of the calculations.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

3. Yes, they got an award today. Finally.

A Canadian team that helped ensure the three astronauts huddled aboard a stricken Apollo 13 made it back to Earth safely 40 years ago was honoured Tuesday for efforts that were part science, part intuition.

Called in to help out, the team at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies had just four hours to come up with critical calculations.

“This was life or death for three people,” said Prof. Barry French, one of the team members.
“Next morning we woke up and heard that it had landed successfully and I remember feeling just amazed, relieved, happy. It was a bit awe-inspiring actually.”

The call to the Canadians on April 16, 1970 came from U.S.-based Grumman Aerospace, which had been contracted to build the lunar-landing module in which the lives of the three desperate astronauts hung on a thread. Grumman wanted to know what pressure would be needed to separate the module from the crippled service module, which had been badly damaged by an oxygen tank explosion.
People the globe over held their collective breath as the crippled craft aborted its planned moon landing and limped back toward Earth.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/canadians-honoured-for-aiding-apollo-13/article1533260/

[stray cat]

2. Most things like that are fun in retrospect - once the threat to life is diminished