SPACE ODESSY-PART 5

Apollo 13 (April 1970) had been scheduled to be the third manned lunar landing. However, the lunar landing portion of the mission was aborted because of the explosion of an oxygen tank in the service module en route to the moon. We were monitoring the flight's progress when we became aware of the explosion. Needless to say, we spent many anxious hours until the Crew return safely A cislunar mission was accomplished and the lunar module was used to provide life support and propulsion for the disabled command and service module en route home. A safe return and landing was effected in the Pacific. The Command Module landed within 400 yards of the Recovery Carrier.
Although Apollo 17 was the last of the manned flights to the moon, it was not the last of the Apollo spacecraft. Apollo paved the way for missions to follow. The next program using an Apollo command module was Skylab (May 14, 1973-February 8, 1974), occurring within the time frame of this chronology, as studies of lunar samples and data returned from Project Apollo continued in laboratories throughout the world. Skylab was man's most ambitious and organized scientific probing of his planet and proved the value of manned scientific space expeditions. Skylab proved man's value in space as a manufacturer, an astronomer, and an earth observer, using the most sophisticated instruments in ways that unmanned satellites cannot match. Skylab also demonstrated man's great utility as a repairman in space.
Detailed studies of man's physiological responses to prolonged exposure to weightlessness proved his ability to adjust to the space environment and to perform useful and valuable work in space. In solar physics, Skylab enriched our solar data more than a hundredfold, with a total of some 200,000 photographs of the sun made from the Apollo Telescope Mount. As observers of earth resources from Skylab, the crews returned over 40,000 photographs and more than 60 kilometers of high-density magnetic tape. Data were acquired for all 48 continental United States and 34 foreign countries.
We will continue to apply what we learned from Apollo, as well as Skylab as we venture into the next manned program, known as the Space Shuttle (I wasn't fortunate enough to work on the SHUTTLE, but the APOLLO PROGRAM gave me quite a ride).