DAVID MELENDY
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar
spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey
to the moon, safely returned to Earth on April 17, 1970.
On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was
launched from Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell,
John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise.
The mission was headed for a landing on the Fra Mauro
highlands of the moon. However, two days into the mission,
disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank
No. 2 blew up in the spacecraft.
Swigert reported to mission control on Earth, “Houston, we’ve
had a problem here,” and it was discovered that the normal
supply of oxygen, electricity, light and water had been disrupted.
