In Rememberance
Welcome to The Space Odd-essey Zone
The last frontier...the new age explorer...aliens...humans...meta humans...dimensions...time warps...black holes...novas...super novas...the mercury project...the apollo project...star wars...astronauts...predators and victims...the stuff movies are made out of...capturing our hearts, our minds, and our imaginations, while we speed off into the unknown with abandon looking to see why we are here and where we belong in this vast Universe we call home.
Space
Shuttle Columbia
Saturday February 1st, 2003, lost over Texas at 8:59am
To all the Brave Men and Women...Rick D. Husband ( Commander );
William C. McCool
( Pilot ); Michael P. Anderson ( Payload Commander ); David M. Brown (
Mission Specialist ); Kalpana Chawla ( Mission Specialist ); Laurel
Clark ( Mission Specialist ); Ilan Ramon ( Payload Specialist )...and
to those who have gone before...and after.
Apollo 13
Crew
Lift-off date: April 11th, 1970; Splashdown date: April 17th, 1970
Fred W. Haise Jr.; John L. Swigert Jr.; and James A. Lovell Jr.
receiving the presidential Medal of Freedom from US President
Richard M. Nixon on April 18th, 1970.
The Accident
The Apollo 13 malfunction was caused by an explosion and rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly. The service module bay no.4 cover was blown off. All oxygen stores were lost within about 3 hours, along with loss of water, electrical power, and use of the propulsion system.
The oxygen tanks were highly insulated spherical tanks which held a "slush" of liquid oxygen with a fill line and heater running down the center. The no. 2 oxygen tank used in Apollo 13 (North American Rockwell; serial number 10024X-TA0008) had originally been installed in Apollo 10. It was removed from Apollo 10 for modification and during the extraction was dropped 2 inches, slightly jarring an internal fill line. The tank was replaced with another for Apollo 10, and the exterior inspected. The internal fill line was not known to be damaged, and this tank was later installed in Apollo 13.
Apollo 1
Crew
Edward White ( Command Pilot ); Virgil " Gus " Grissom ( Commander );
and Robert Chaffee ( Pilot ).
Apollo 1
Accident
One of the worst tragedies in the history of spaceflight occurred on January 27, 1967 when the crew of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire in the Apollo Command Module during a preflight test at Cape Canaveral. They were training for the first crewed Apollo flight, an Earth orbiting mission scheduled to be launched on 21 February. They were taking part in a "plugs-out" test, in which the Command Module was mounted on the Saturn 1B on the launch pad just as it would be for the actual launch, but the Saturn 1B was not fueled. The plan was to go through an entire countdown sequence.
At 1 p.m. on Friday, 27 January 1967 the astronauts entered the capsule on Pad 34 to begin the test. A number of minor problems cropped up which delayed the test considerably and finally a failure in communications forced a hold in the count at 5:40 p.m. At 6:31 one of the astronauts (probably Chaffee) reported, "Fire, I smell fire." Two seconds later White was heard to say, "Fire in the cockpit." The fire spread throughout the cabin in a matter of seconds. The last crew communication ended 17 seconds after the start of the fire, followed by loss of all telemetry. The Apollo hatch could only open inward and was held closed by a number of latches which had to be operated by ratchets. It was also held closed by the interior pressure, which was higher than outside atmospheric pressure and required venting of the command module before the hatch could be opened. It took at least 90 seconds to get the hatch open under ideal conditions. Because the cabin had been filled with a pure oxygen atmosphere at normal pressure for the test and there had been many hours for the oxygen to permeate all the material in the cabin, the fire spread rapidly and the astronauts had no chance to get the hatch open. Nearby technicians tried to get to the hatch but were repeatedly driven back by the heat and smoke. By the time they succeeded in getting the hatch open roughly 5 minutes after the fire started the astronauts had already perished, probably within the first 30 seconds, due to smoke inhalation and burns.
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