#we interrupt this broadcast of fics for real life astronaut adoration

[norabrice1701]

"On 11 April 1970, Apollo 13 launched right on schedule at 13:13 military time. How ironic, all those 13s! What is not generally appreciated about Apollo 13, however, is that the crew came nearest to dying during their launch, not as a result of their in-flight accident.

…

'Houston, we’ve had a problem,' Lovell reported.

I was at Mission Control with the Apollo 13 wives when Jim uttered his masterpiece of understatement. Initially the crew thought that the loud bang might be a meteoroid hitting the lunar module. But it was far worse.

…

The flight of Apollo 13 in its entirety lasted for 145 hours. About 90 of those came after the accident. I was awake and either in meetings or in the lunar module simulator for about 120 of them. It’s hard to believe all the work it took to achieve the crew’s safe return. That work was done in Mission Control, in the simulators at the Cape and in Houston, and all over the Manned Spacecraft Center.

…

Like all the rest, I was delighted to see Jim, Jack, and Fred get back alive, because when I was watching the second oxygen tank leak, I thought for sure we had lost them."

- Excerpts from Forever Young by John W. Young about the Apollo 13, and clips of him in Mission Control

[norabrice1701]

Aww, so much love for this 😍 Thank you for the tag @frmagpieao3

Some of my fav passages from Forever Young by John W. Young about Apollo 10 (I just enjoy his voice so much!)

Some of the NASA PR guys didn’t especially like our choice of names because they felt they were too undignified. We made it worse for them when we announced our names for the Apollo 10 modules: Charlie Brown for the CM and Snoopy for the LM. Charles Schulz drew some special mission-related artwork for NASA, and Charlie Brown and Snoopy became semiofficial mascots for the mission. Still, it was the last time that NASA officials in their greater wisdom would allow such unstately names to be associated with their space missions.

The reality was, the lunar module for flying on Apollo 10, LM-4, wasn’t capable of landing on the moon anyway because it had no landing gear. For a lunar mission, LM-4 was overweight; it had been designed for a flight only to high earth orbit where there was no need to whack off the extra pounds. Postponing the launch of Apollo 10 for a couple months until the lighter-weight LM-5 was ready to go was considered by senior management, but not for long.

One new item on our flight was a color camera, and we gave that thing a workout. We began by taking some great color pictures of Earth as it became smaller and smaller behind us. Seeing Mother Earth shrinking in size behind you tends to make a person a bit nervous, I can tell you!

I was in the commander’s seat operating the entry. We were on automatic and came in at a speed of 36,315 feet per second – a little over 24,760 miles per hour – which proved to be the fastest entry of any Apollo spacecraft. That speed converts to Mach 37.52! Later I asked, “If you come back the fastest, doesn’t that mean you’ve been the furthest away?” That was a question no one could answer. It was later confirmed that we had, in fact, accelerated back to Earth at a record speed, making the crew of Apollo 10 the fastest humans in history.

❤️🚀✨

A Touch of Luck

"As the Apollo 10 crew walks along a corridor on the way to Launch Complex 39B, mission commander Thomas P. Stafford pats the nose of Snoopy, the mission's mascot, held by Jamye Flowers, astronaut Gordon Coopers' secretary.

The Apollo 10 crew nicknamed the Lunar Module (LM) 'Snoopy' and the Command/Service Module (CSM) 'Charlie Brown' after characters in the Charles Schulz comic strip "Peanuts."

Launched on May 18, 1969, the Apollo 10 mission was a 'dress rehearsal' for the lunar landing that occurred later that year.

The mission successfully completed the first manned CSM and LM docking and undocking operations in a lunar environment. Apollo 10 orbited the moon 31 times during its eight-day mission and took the LM to within 50,000 feet of the lunar surface, simulating a lunar landing.

After all these historic 'firsts,' the crew also sent the first live color television from space."

"The Apollo 10 crew leaves the Kennedy Space Center's Manned Spacecraft Operations Building during the Apollo 10 prelaunch countdown. Leading is astronaut John W. Young, command module pilot, followed by astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, commander; and Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot. The transfer van carried them over to Pad B, Launch Complex 39, where their spacecraft awaited them."

NASA ID: link, S69-35315

[norabrice1701]

A phone call from Apollo 13 backup Commander John Young to his wife, Barbara, 50 hours before disaster strikes:

Home about 8, cautionary scolding about his chat with Mary Haise (wife of Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise), hamburgers for dinner, and words of support ❤️

"For some reason, you're well-loved by everyone. They all have a great deal of faith in you. Anything John Young says, you know, is all right." -Barbara Young

[norabrice1701]

We interrupt this broadcast of fics for nerdy space love and real life astronaut adoration -

T-minus 27 minutes and 40 seconds and counting until Apollo 13 launched 53 years ago

If you have any interest in space or Apollo 13, this is fascinating to check as the mission progresses/progressed over the next six days.

I'm currently listening at work, trying to pretend I'm doing something cooler with my engineering degree than dissecting why my schedule progress curve looks like crap 😒🤓🚀🌕