Question: How come all news networks refused to show Apollo 13's live TV broadcast?
Charles Austin Miller
29th Jul 2018
Apollo 13 (1995)
22nd Jul 2018
Apollo 13 (1995)
Question: What made the banging the sound the crew heard before the oxygen tank exploded?
Answer: When Mission Control asked Jack Swigert to "stir" the No. 2 oxygen tank, Swigert complied; immediately, the astronauts heard and felt a loud banging noise followed by an actual explosion. As it happened, there were damaged electrical wires powering the "cryo-stir" fan inside oxygen tank No.2. Those wires violently shorted out when Swigert activated them, sparking an intense fire (fueled by the ship's pure oxygen atmosphere), destroying vital tank insulation, and overheating the No.2 oxygen tank to the point of rupture in a matter of seconds. So, the banging noises they heard just before the explosion were the result of electrical wiring violently shorting out and a flash-fire erupting, which precipitated the tank explosion.
Oddly enough, Jack Swigert had stirred the No. 2 oxygen tank a couple of times earlier in the mission, with no problems whatsoever. Why the wiring suddenly failed on this last attempt is still a subject of debate.
Why would it be subject to debate? The further into the flight, the less liquid oxygen in the tank. The frayed wires were not exposed until this point in the flight. Exposed wires allowed the arc. The arc caused the explosion.
What does the "ship's pure oxygen atmosphere" have to do with it? The ship didn't explode or burn. Apollo 1, yes, the command module did, but not 13.
16th Dec 2017
Apollo 13 (1995)
Question: What did Houston mean by they need Omni bravo?
Answer: The Apollo spacecraft had 4 omni-directional control antennas, designated A, B, C, and D. "Omni Bravo" was the B antenna. When Mission Control in Houston said they needed Omni Bravo, it meant they wanted Apollo 13 to try to activate the B antenna.
What were Omni-directional control antennas?
Omni Directional Control Antennas were capable of sending and receiving signals from any direction. The Apollo 13 spacecraft had 4 redundant antennas of this type, which allowed Mission Control in Houston to remotely control certain systems when necessary.
Answer: Omni directional antennas can broadcast in any direction at once, as opposed to one that can only broadcast to a particular spot.
19th Sep 2017
Apollo 13 (1995)
Question: Why did the Apollo 13 spacecraft need a parachute? They were landing on water not solid ground. It's easier to survive a fall when landing on water, so why would they need a parachute if they were landing on water?
Answer: Spacecraft re-enter Earth's atmosphere at extremely high velocity (thousands of miles per hour). Atmospheric friction slows the spacecraft descent somewhat; but, without parachutes, the Apollo spacecraft would still reach the surface traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. Landing in water at such high speed would be like hitting concrete, which would of course be instantly fatal. Hence the necessity of multiple parachutes. The Apollo program (and all early U.S. manned space programs) chose to land in the ocean for two reasons: 1) It was easier to track spacecraft re-entry from horizon-to-horizon at sea without visual and radar obstacles, and; 2) It was faster and easier to position several Navy vessels in the general splashdown location, then deploy helicopters to rapidly retrieve the astronauts and their spacecraft.
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Answer: The US had been to the moon twice before. America had already become jaded with NASA's successes and weren't interested in minute by minute coverage before they'd even reached the lunar surface.
Brian Katcher
The American public was not jaded with the lunar program so much as it was the Big Three television networks that had become complacent.
Charles Austin Miller