What did the Apollo 13 astronauts see on their harrowing journey around the moon?
On April 11th, 1970, Apollo 13 launched with a mission to land on the moon, but an unexpected explosion during the trip to the moon turned it into a mission of survival. This short documentary recaptures NASA’s Mission Control and the brave crew as they worked against the odds to return to Earth safely. This short documentary reveals the breathtaking lunar views recreated from lunar footage over the Apollo’s path of their perilous journey in 1970.
There is a lot more that can be said about this heroic moment in space history, more than can be covered in a short social media post. For example, had the oxygen tank explosion occurred after the crew had visited the moon, they would not have had the lunar module to serve as a life boat when the service module failed.
The astronauts had to calculate and steer the ship manually to stay on course…space is infinite and firing rockets toward the wrong point meant they would miss Earth completely and be unable to try again. They also had to conserve the batteries because they couldn’t generate electricity so they had to turn off the heat and deal with the cold. But in all the recordings of the mission, no one lost hope. The Apollo 13 crew had never drilled or practiced a tank explosion scenario, it was all solved for the first time when it happened in space. In all, mission control and the astronauts had only one chance to do the impossible, and as they made the loop around the moon, they set the historical record for the farthest manned mission from Earth in history—which still stands today.
This video is for fans of space exploration, NASA history, and science lovers!
Script, editing and graphic work: Jef Gray
Footage from Pixabay, Pexels, Wikipedia, and NASA
Production: International Peace and Film Festival
