Apollo 13: A Journey Beyond the Moon

To this day, no living human has traveled farther into space than the crew of Apollo 13. (The ashes of Clyde Tombaugh have now gone far beyond Pluto, but that is a different story.) The crew traveled a distance of 248,655 miles from Earth and then miraculously returned for a safe landing.

However, the crew never reached their original destination—the surface of the Moon. Instead, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise faced a life-threatening crisis: a fire broke out in an oxygen tank due to faulty wiring, destroying a major portion of the spacecraft.

Using the lunar module as a lifeboat, the crew carefully rationed their remaining supplies. They had to stretch one and a half days’ worth of food meant for two people to last three people for four days. The crew also had to alter their trajectory, sending them farther away from the Moon before slingshotting back toward Earth.

The lunar module provided a safe shelter for the astronauts in space, but it was not designed to survive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The crew transferred back into the damaged command module and ultimately landed safely. All survived, though Haise suffered from severe dehydration.

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