science · 13 April 1970 · 54 years ago
In 1970, an explosion during the Apollo 13 mission led to one of the most spectacular rescue missions in US space history. The explosion aboard the Odyssey spacecraft left the crew stranded for four days more than 200,000 miles from Earth. An oxygen leak forced the Apollo 13 astronauts to abandon ship and return in lunar module. Against all odds, the three astronauts and thousands of others brought the capsule safely back to Earth. The astronauts were Fred Haise, Jack Swigert, and Commander Jim Lovell, and the mission was to have made the third manned landing of the moon.
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