Apollo 13: The NASA Mission Reports: Apogee Books Space Series 9 [With Windows CD-ROM]

Over the past few years the saga of Apollo 13 has been recounted in several books (Jim Lovell's Lost Moon, Gene Kranz's Failure is Not an Option and Chris Kraft's Flight) and the Blockbuster movie, Apollo 13. While these books and movies have provided an excellent overview of this "Successful Failure," and the role that Mission Control played in it, technical details associated with the explosion of the spacecraft are not discussed in any great detail. This latest volume from Apogee does just that.Apollo 13 was planned to be NASA's third lunar landing and the first one dedicated to scientific exploration. The Lunar Module was scheduled to land at Fra Mauro with commander Jim Lovell who making his fourth space mission and second to the moon and rookie Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise. Jack Swigert, who was the Command Module Pilot, replaced Ken Mattingly only days before launch remained in orbit.Like most of the other volumes in this NASA Mission Report series, the book opens with the usual NASA mission press kit. This press kit is more detailed than the previous mission, Apollo 12, because it contains detailed information about the lunar surface activities and experiments. It is interesting to note that due to late addition of Jack Swigert to the crew, Ken Mattingly is still listed as the Command Module Pilot. The next of the book contains the Post Launch Mission Operation Report, which is essentially a moderately technical summary of all the highlights of the mission.The next section of the book, contains the crew debrief section, and covers about 25% of the book and is 67 pages long. This debriefing was conducted only a few days after the splashdown. As one would expect, much of this section deals with the accident and their flight around the moon and back to earth; however, there many portions devoted to crew training, launch, observation of the moon and more. This section maybe difficult for many to follow, since there are numerous undefined NASA acronyms and references to specific pieces of equipment in the Command Module (individual switches) which probably only the astronauts and the designers of the Apollo capsule know.The final section of the book is the transcripts of the House Committee on Science and Astronautics Hearings and the report that was submitted to this committee. It is in this portion of the book that contains the most technical descriptions of the accident. There are detailed timelines of the mission and accident, documentation related to the construction of the oxygen tank and numerous photographs.As usual in all the Mission Reports series, the book contains a CD that includes additional material. The CD contains all the 70mm Hassalblad photographs which includes some spectacular views of the far side of the moon and the crew before and after the oxygen tank explosion. Also included on the CD is an interview with Jim Lovell, the post landing press conference (over an hour long) and several NASA videos. Some gen

This is the definitive answer to what happened on Apollo 13. The result, in readable form, of NASA's investigation and review of the entire flight.Detailed analysis of what chain of little mistakes culminated in the explosion. Details of the recovery plan. And even some insight into the astronauts like part of the debriefing where they tell what they thought of the razors supplied by NASA.Technical details and analysis into an exciting episode of the manned space program.

As with the others in the series, the book is a treasure-trove of great material that was previously unavailable to the general public. The videos continue to be interesting, especially the long interview with Jim Lovell. The press conference video was teriffic from start to finish. The investigative report of the accident is also a great addition. I own the entire series so far and expect I will continue to purchase these as they are released.

It is cold in space, but this book made me feel warm, just like some of the others in this serie. I have got them all. Now I can sit down with my restless body for a long while, enjoy reading, looking at the images and feel history as if it it was today, just by taking in NASA movies to my brains. I am looking forward to the next one.

Once again great stuff. Let's hope the NASA Mission Reports will continue until Apollo 17. The only missions announced on the CD are Apollo 14 (November 2000) and Apollo 15 (TBA).