Apollo 13

[gtvc]

Well what do you think of Apollo 13 bad luck?

[DataCable]

I'm generally opposed to bad luck, including Apollo 13 bad luck.

...Or maybe I'm not understanding the question.

[Glom]

It was the kind of bad luck that was not quite unlucky enough.

[Donnie B.]

It was the kind of bad luck that was not quite unlucky enough.

On the contrary, I'd say it was the kind of bad luck that was incredibly lucky.

[BertL]

If I'd be in space and part of my spacecraft would explode, I would consider myself very lucky to get back home unharmed.

[gtvc]

 

If I'd be in space and part of my spacecraft would explode, I would consider myself very lucky to get back home unharmed.

yes I agree, they were lucky to have the lunar module

[ka9q]

Not just to have the lunar module, but to have the explosion occur just when it did. Had it occurred in lunar orbit, even prior to landing, you know what would have happened. But if it had occurred much earlier in the mission (but post TLI) then it might also have turned out badly. The LM might not have had enough consumables for the return trip. I'm pretty sure that after TLI, the only way to do a direct (non-circumlunar) abort is to dump the LM and do a full burn of the SPS, and that was out of the question.

It's easy to forget just how reactive ordinary oxygen really is, especially when pure and under high pressure. I tend to think of fluorine as the most viciously reactive nonmetallic element, and I guess it is; it will cause many materials to ignite spontaneously, while oxygen with those same materials will not. But pressurized oxygen had the ability to displace at least part of the fluorine from the carbon in the Teflon insulation of the Apollo 13 O₂ tank.

A Google search found the book "Flammability and Sensitivity of Materials in Oxygen-Enriched Atmospheres", which says that the combustion products of Teflon are primarily CO₂ and COF₂ - the latter being a phosgene (WW1 war gas) analog about 10x as toxic as CO. An even nastier material produced by Teflon pyrolosis (thermal breakdown) is perfluoroisobutylene, itself about 10x as toxic as phosgene. I wonder, if the Apollo 13 O₂ tank #2 had not ruptured during the internal fire, would the astronauts have gotten sick from these Teflon combustion and pyrolosis products?


 

[Abaddon]

If I'd be in space and part of my spacecraft would explode, I would consider myself very lucky to get back home unharmed.

Nothing to do with luck, more with engineering and ingenuity.

[ka9q]

There was some luck involved...without the LM the explosion would have been fatal no matter how skilled everybody was.

[raven]

Which leads to another case of lucky bad luck.
Due to another problem, the tanks were stirred considerably more often, which lead to the explosion happening that much sooner. If it had occurred when the tanks would have been normally stirred that many times, it would have occurred on the way home, sans the LM.
There is little doubt in my mind what the result then would have been.

[gtvc]

Was this the only accident in the Apollo program? at least was the most dangerous, but I remember one of the astronauts claiming that faith the people praying in Earth saved them.

[slang]

Was this the only accident in the Apollo program?

No, although the most terrible accident didn't happen in space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1

at least was the most dangerous, but I remember one of the astronauts claiming that faith the people praying in Earth saved them.

So? "Everyone prayed for us, and nothing bad happened! Praying works!". I can imagine a religious person feeling that way (that the prayers from Earth helped), but IMHO it was great engineering and skilled people that got them there and back.

[Zakalwe]

at least was the most dangerous, but I remember one of the astronauts claiming that faith the people praying in Earth saved them.

So all the people that were praying that the mission went well before the explosion were obviously full of fail. Or maybe the god that they were praying to was having a coffee break at the time, and only decided to pull his/her/it's finger out when the O2 tank went pop.

[Glom]

All of the astronauts of that time were at least a bit religious (didn't Jim Irwin go into religious work.after Apollo 15) but not to the "god-is-my-copilot" level. They would not have expected God to pull alongside them in his heavenly AA van.

[raven]

Was this the only accident in the Apollo program? at least was the most dangerous,

Aside from the aforementioned Apollo 1 fire, there were other incidents as well. Apollo 11 had at least two fun incidents, an alarm going off, specifically code 1201, that could have resulted in an abort, and a case where a circut breaker that armed the ascent stage got its toggle got broken off when re-entering the LM from EVA.
Apollo 14 CSM had trouble docking with the LM during TLC, spending almost an hour and three quarters, the LM itself had to have its computer reprogrammed when a faulty switch was sending abort signals to its computer.
And that's just off the top of my head.
Clearly, those who claim Apollo was 'too perfect' don't know much about the program.