INTRODUCTION DISASTER IN SPACE Jim Lovell Fred Haise and Jack Swigert soared through space at thousands of miles per hour They were crew members on the Apollo 13 mission to land on the moon They were all highly trained astronauts Lovell had even orbited the moon two years earlier on the Apollo 8 mission Haise and Swigert were in space for the first time But their training had prepared them for anything that might happen
Suddenly there was an explosion on the spacecraft The crew rushed into action to find out what had happened Then they lost electrical power With a disabled spacecraft their mission was no longer to land on the moon Instead it had become a mission to survive
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission CHAPTERI THE MISSION PLAN Humans first landed on the moon in the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 The Apollo 13 mission in 1970 was supposed to be the third time astronauts landed on the moon This time the astronauts were going to a place on the moon called Fra Mauro Scientists at NASA wanted to study rocks from this area The astronauts would set up several experiments to examine the rocks and environmental conditions on the moon Then scientists at NASA could continue running the experiments from Earth
The spacecraft was made of two parts Odyssey and Aquarius A tunnel connected the two parts Two crew members were to land on the moon in Aquarius They would be on the moon for thirty three hours 03 Lovell and Haise practice for their mission on the moon
