Apollo 13

Episode Description
An episode in which Ashley worries that she might have to watch Tom Hanks die, and she learns that Apollo 13 was not, in fact, about the moon landing. Quite the opposite, in fact.

How well did Ashley guess what this movie was about? ...well, she knew it was in space, at least.

Show Notes
"Houston, we have a problem" (or, if you want to be historically accurate, "Houston, we've had a problem here").

Apollo 13 is a 1995 film starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton as real-life astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, and tells the real-life story of NASA's Apollo 13 mission. 

Apollo 13, the 7th mission in the Apollo program, and only the third planned to land on the moon, launched from the Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970. Two days into the mission, shortly after a live broadcast to Earth (that very few watched), a routine stir of an oxygen tank resulted in an explosion that vented the contents of the service module's oxygen tanks to space. As a result, all systems had to be shut down to conserve remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the lunar module as a lifeboat. Enduring freezing temperatures and navigating territory unfamiliar to all, the astronauts and the mission controllers worked to bring the crew home alive.

So, what caused the oxygen tank to explode? A fascinating series of events two years before the launch of Apollo 13 that essentially boils down to this: somebody accidentally dropped it. 

In October 1968, the tank eventually used on Apollo 13 was in Downey, California. There, technicians who were handling the tank accidentally dropped it a distance of about two inches (oops). After testing the tank, there didn't appear to be any detectable damage. Later, the tank was eventually cleared for flight and subsequently installed on Apollo 13. After installation, it passed additional rigorous prelaunch tests, except for one small issue.

One month before launch, after a practice session, ground crews tried to empty the tank and couldn’t, as the draining mechanism was damaged by the drop two years before. To get around the problem, they turned on the heaters inside the tank to warm up the remaining liquid oxygen to turn it into gaseous oxygen (you know, the stuff we breathe). In its gaseous form, the oxygen could then simply be vented out of the tank - easy peasy. While the ground crew was heating the tank, the thermostat inside the tank was supposed to prevent the temperature from exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Unfortunately, as the temperature inside the tank rose, the thermostat welded shut. Temperatures inside the tank rose to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit instead, and the intense heat damaged some insulation on wiring inside the tank, leaving some exposed wire (that could easily spark). 

The tank now had all the makings of a small bomb, which then went off on April 13, 1970...in the middle of space. Great timing, right?

P.S. - Sorry about the audio, I promise I'll keep learning how to do this right!

Sources:
NASA 50th Anniversary Video of Apollo 13
Space.com - "What Caused the Apollo 13 Accident?"

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Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open
• 0:39 Pre-Research Thoughts
• 2:26 Post-Research
• 19:25 Contact Information