Encounter 03 · 03 of 42 · 13–17 April 1970
A square peg
The landing was already lost. The air in the lifeboat was becoming unbreathable. The next move was a procedure.
Mission Control, Houston
Look at the room, not the sky. The work is on a table.
Apollo 13 launched from Kennedy on 11 April 1970. James Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert. Swigert had been moved onto the crew when Ken Mattingly was scratched after a measles exposure. The job was a landing in the Fra Mauro highlands. About fifty-six hours later the tank went. The landing was already lost. The remaining problem was air.
How the mailbox became the remaining problem
- 11 April 1970Launch. Third attempted lunar landing.
- 13 April, ~56 hoursService-module oxygen tank ruptures. The landing is abandoned. Lunar module Aquarius becomes a lifeboat.
- The hours afterThree men in a cabin sized, for air, for two. Lithium hydroxide canisters scrub carbon dioxide. The command module’s are square. The lunar module’s are round. They do not fit.
Expected
The lunar module would scrub air for two men on the surface and then be thrown away. The command module would bring three men home on its own system.
Observed
The command module was powered down to save what was left. Three men were living in the lunar module. Its canisters would not last. The square ones were on board and useless unless someone made a mouth between them.
What they had
- A radio loop
- A checklist habit
- Duct tape, plastic bags, cardboard, and the square canisters
- People on the ground whose job was not bravery but fit
The work is on a table in Houston and then on a table in Aquarius. Test what you can on the ground. Write the steps. Read them up. Build the ugly thing. Watch the gauge. Aborting the landing was already a decision. Stopping the original plan was the condition for any later success.
1970
The loops
NASA mission transcripts record the explosion, the abort, and the ground-led construction of the adapter. Humor existed on the loops. It did not make the air better. The mailbox did, enough.
Later
The peg
You can’t put a square peg in a round hole, and that’s what we had.Ed Smylie, afterward. Oral history and obituaries. He was not speaking in metaphor. He was speaking about lithium hydroxide canisters. The line is later. The fit is 1970.
The “failure is not an option” line associated with Gene Kranz is a film condensation. It is not a quotation to lean on here.
The landing was already lost. They still had to breathe.
Splashdown on 17 April is the later fact. It does not prove the jury-rig was wise in advance. It proves three men were still alive to be recovered. A mixed ending is not a parable.
When the original purpose is already lost, what is the next possible thing?
Private. No one else will see it.
Source
- institutional01 · NASA History / Apollo 13Mission timeline, abort of landing, LM as lifeboat, splashdown 17 April 1970. Transcripts of the air-to-ground loop.
- interview02 · Ed Smylie oral history and obituariesWashington Post, collectSPACE, Mississippi State: the 1 a.m. realization, square versus cylindrical canisters, team of about sixty, “mailbox.” Later recollection of 1970.Record
Apollo 13 · procedure · a lost landing