Re: How far from abort?

"Jim in Houston" <nospamjamesgoodum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0nrdf3pr9a0ddq1vqjm46oq35g8votbfsi@xxxxxxxxxx
On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 22:47:21 GMT, PP@xxxxxx wrote:

Apollo 12 was struck by lightning and the capsule went dead.
Apollo 13 had problems with a second stage (?) inboard engine.
Apollo 14 had some problems with docking.

Were any of them close to aborting their mission? It might have been
better if 13 DID abort.

Also, after 13's exposion, was it possible to stop and back up,
instead of circling the moon then coming back?
Concerning 12, everything came back very quickly and worked fine.

But, that wasn't the end of it. One of the concerns was that the pyros for
the parachutes might have fired or been damaged, rendering them useless.
But the decision was that if that were the case, it wouldn't matter sooner
or later, so might as well go ahead with the landing.


13's service module engine was rendered inoperable by the explosion,

Actually it wasn't. It was decided that it was probably damaged and as such
could not be used. However, if no other options had been available, it
would have been available for use.

and they were too close to the moon to just turn around. Remember they
were traveling at about 25,000 miles per hour toward the moon. They
had to use the moon's gravity to kind of sling shot them back toward
the earth.

I believe that at the point the explosion occurred, they determined that
there was enough delta-V between the CSM/LM that they could have aborted
back to Earth directly. There was a lot of argument for that if only
because is meant other issues (such as CO2 build up, etc) wouldn't be as
bad. Had they been able to guarantee the integrety of the main engine, they
probably would have used it.

Also to add to the original poster's question, Apollo 13 did wake them up to
some of the safety issues. (Later CSM's had an additional LOX and H2 tanks
in a completely separate area of the SM to add redundancy).

14's problems were minor and quickly worked out.
You can research all of this by Goggling each mission and reading
about them. Also there are plenty of books, one written by Jim Lovell,
13's Commander, that cover the mission very thoroughly.
There were no indications of problems with 13 prior to the cryro stir
event that would've necessitated an abort prior to the explosion.
Jim in Houston.

Contrary to popular opinion RN does not mean Real Nerd!
Teddy Roosevelt's mother said: "Fill what is empty,
empty what is full, and scratch where it itches"

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