The crew, which included Fred Haise( left), Jim Lovell
(middle) and Jack Swigert (right).

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.

The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and
controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency
procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon,
looped around it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth.

Crew portrait for Artemis II, from left: NASA Astronauts
Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian
Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

NASA on Monday named the four astronauts who will fly to the
moon by the end of next year, including one woman and three
men.

The three Americans and one Canadian were introduced during
a ceremony in Houston, home to the nation’s astronauts as well
as Mission Control.

"This is humanity’s crew," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The four astronauts will be the first to fly NASA’s Orion capsule, launching atop a Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy
Space Center no earlier than late 2024. They will not land or even
go into lunar orbit, but rather fly around the moon and head
straight back to Earth, a prelude to a lunar landing by two others
a year later.

Provided this next 10-day moonshot goes well, NASA aims to
land two astronauts on the moon by 2025 or so.

NASA picked from 41 active astronauts for its first Artemis crew
and Canada had four candidates. (MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer)

Ronnie Walter Cunningham (March 16, 1932 – January 3, 2023)

Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first
successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program,
died Tuesday in Houston. He was a lunar module pilot on the 
1968 Apollo 7 mission. NASA confirmed Cunningham’s death
on Twitter.

Apollo 7 crewmates Donn Eisele (at left), Wally Schirra
(center) and Walt Cunningham.  (NASA)

During Apollo 8‘s 10 lunar orbits, television images were sent
back home and spectacular photos were taken of the Earth
and the moon from the spacecraft. In addition to being the
First human beings to view firsthand their home world in its
entirety, the three astronauts were also the first to see the far
side of the moon. On Christmas morning, Apollo 8 left its lunar
orbit and began its journey back to Earth, landing safely in the
Pacific Ocean on December 27, 1968.

SANDY KOZEL