Thank you. Id like to start off the briefing by saying that im not a superstitious person, and therefore when we were assigned apollo 13 i thought nothing of it. As a matter of fact, some of my friends of italian descent 13 was a lucky number. It all started before the flight as documented as we are approaching the final phase of our training the last couple of days are usually ones which are taken very usually. Try to keep a couple of days free to unwind from the long Training Cycle and get plenty of rest so that when we launch were in good shape and we can go with an easy mind. As you know a turn of events occurred and at that time we had to make a big decision to bring jack along or delay the flight. It was one which was not easy for me to help decide. And when they asked me what i wanted to do because we had worked as a team for a long time, but i also realized that the program had matured to that degree whereby we had quite a few people who were well knowledgeable about the spacecraft and who were well qualified to fly. As a consequence on friday we decided to bring jack along. And id like to say right now ive never regretted that decision. We as a team i think and jack helped us out during our ensuing odyssey tremendously. At this time i think i would like to just break off just a second and introduce a couple of other people of our team that also served, although were not in the same position as we were. Would you take the stand please . This is my wife meryl. And right next is my wife, mary. Now i think the entire crew of the continental stewards were here tonight, jack. Jack had a lot of help on this flight. The launch saturday morning was not unusual. It was a very phenomenal launch. It was very smooth. It seemed a lot easier than id experienced on apollo 8. Liftoff came just as id known it before. Communications were excellent and the entire boost phase was compared very favorably with what i had experienced before. Except during the s2 burn, at which case i noticed the in board lights come on indicating on the second stage indicating that an engine had shutdown. I called in board as was the normal procedure, and realized then it had come about 2 minutes early. And the ground confirmed this. And as a consequence we had an early engine out in our boost 2 phase. This did not impair our flight, however. We had enough fuel to relight the third stage and go in a trajectory towards the moon. The flight up until about 56 hours was i guess what you call nominal. We had followed the flight plan, we were ahead of the game. Take a little bit longer to get rid of our pressure system we thought. And we had asked the ground about 55 hours if we could indeed get into the lunar module about three hours early. The flight plan call to go into the spacecraft around 51 hours. The ground said, fine, why dont you open up the lem and go on down do your House Keeping chores. There was an Engineering Task we had to perform. And also with that was a Television Program which we were forced to put on, so we decided to open up the lunar module, and got into the spacecraft, went down, looked at the pressure on the super helium tanks to make sure it was phenomenal. We were having some problems with that before the flight. It was. And then we put on the little tv show which is called the flight plan. Just after we had turned off the camera fred was still in the lunar module and jack was back in the command module on the lefthand seat and i was halfway wrestling with tv wire and the camera when all three of us heard a rather large bang, just one bang. Now, before that fred being in the lunar module had a valve which not only gives us that same sound and since he didnt tell us about it, we all rather jumped and wassert of worried about it, and we all thought it was fun at the time until something happened. So when this bang came we didnt really get concerned right away. But i looked up at fred and fred had that expression like it wasnt his fault. And we suddenly realized that Something Else occurred, but exactly what we didnt know. Id like to go on now and let fred and jack explain what their impressions were at this very same instance that i heard the explosion in the lower equipment bay. Jack . Okay. Excuse me. The sensation that i had that i had felt a vibration accompanying the bang, not a large vibration or shudder. I proceeded to look at jim, and about the same time which is i guess about 2 seconds had elapsed when i hit a master alarm and a bolt light. I transmitted to houston that we had a problem and proceeded to over on the righthand side of the spacecraft to look at the voltage. The voltage at that time was completely normal. The current was not high, and the fuel cell flows were normal, which indicated to me whatever it was it was some sort of a transient that didnt exist at that time. It me being a command module pilot and the source of the bang not immediately determinable, it was my thought of course i had a little more confidence in the command module so i thought it had occurred in the lem and i said lets get the hatch in here so we can sit back and think about it because we had the tunnel open at this time, and i was afraid we might be vulnerable to losing pressure, hatch and begin installing the hatch. And fred went back over to the lunar module pilots couch and ill let him tell what his observations were as far as the instruments and the other caution warning alarms. First of all, due to my position being a lot more familiar with the lem side of the house my natural first impulse feeling this shudder and explosion was to make sure the lem hatch was on the other main bus. And this reduced the amount of volten on the other main bus. And thats when i got a little smarter and thought maybe id look at the other fuel cells and i hadnt even considered this had a problem. And i found fuel cell one also not outputting any amps. From this point on we were kind of under the hands of houston and started troubleshooting and looking at a few more dials down another meter and lab to look at the regulated pressures and eventually we got to the point where houston called up and asked us to shutdown fuel cell three, shutdown the reactants and i asked for reconfirmation so when you do that its sort of irreversible. If you shut one of these down it only can be restarted from ground supported equipment. And they assured me they really meant it so i went through with it, and subsequently the same command was given for fuel cell one. About this point in time the cryo pressure, the oxygen pressure had gone in cryo tank 2, and the pressure in tang number 1 was slowly but steadily decreasing. It was obvious it wasnt holding its own. And right about then it was quite apparent to me it was just a question of time that the command module was going to be dead, we were going to lose that fuel cell also. So i kind of lost interest in that position and headed for the lem. I think one of the things that we neglected to mention that in my efforts to put in the hatch when jim noticed we had considerable venting out the side of the command module so it indicated we were losing some sort of liquid or material. So it indicated to us we truly had a problem in the Service Module. I guess its kind of interesting to know what the feelings are clearly when Something Like this happens. When you first hear this explosion or bang you dont know what it is. And weve had similar sounds in the spacecraft before that were nothing. And then to me my impression was as we came back that we had an electrical problem that caused this bang because in previous testing we had some problems along these lines. That quickly went away and i looked out the window and saw this venting. And my concern was increasing all the time. It went from i wonder what this is going to do to the landing to i wonder if we can get back home again, and it sort of went into that type of seriousness. When i looked up and saw both the oxygen pressures one on zero and the other one going down, it dawned on me and im sure jack felt about the same time we were indeed in serious trouble. It was apparent and the ground told us so, and theyre right on the ball all the time that the only way to survive the situation was to transfer to the lem. And so at that time fred first of all went into the lem, got out our activation checklist. The checklist which normally is not used until prior to powering up the lem to detach from the command module and prepare to go down to the lunar surface. We started going through procedures to get lem power on and to align the platform. The first milestone, and i consider this after the accident i guess more or less the survival now, the first milestone was to get alignment on a lem platform. Alignments are important, you know, because without knowing exactly which way the altitude of the spacecraft is in space theres no way to tell how to burn or how to use the engines of that spacecraft to get the proper trajectory to come home. We had to have alignment on the spacecraft. We knew the command module was going to lose it pretty soon because we were going to lose power. We started to align the platform. We used a procedure that was in the activation checklist, check gave us the angles. There was a little bit of arithmetic involved in all these procedures, and i had on occasion during practice failed my arithmetic test, and i was so concerned about being sure this arithmetic was correct i actually called down to the ground and let them do the math and called back in to get it in. From then it was an entirely different situation. This little model might tell you exactly how we were. Up until the incident the normal command is in the command module. Control is by the Service Module engine, rcs engine as far as controls goes. But we transferred our command to the lunar module and we are using the lunar module engines for control. We had done this before, but really had never thought wed ever have to use this particular control situation. And to get control of this vehicle, you have to use one controller one way roll another way and you can use the aca. So what we did fred would handle one part of the droll and i would handle the other and control the maneuverability of the other spacecraft. We also had back here a Service Module that was completely filled with main engine fuel. We had to use very little of it, just one small burn. And also we had rcs engines that were almost completely filled with fuel. An important point to remember at this time, too, is the fact we had gotten off what we call the free return trajectory. We had done our midcourse maneuver some time before. And this meant we would no longer be on a math where we could swing around the moon and get back on trajectory to earth. So the first thing the ground told us to do was to burn the engine to get us back on that free return trajectory which was going to get us into what the indian ocean, was it . I think a lost track of oceans. Yes, it was the indian ocean at about 155 hours. 155 hours. The controllability of the spacecraft was okay as long as we had our indicators up because we had practiced that as i said. To save power we had shut that down for a while. We were looking at our computer display and i had never tried that before, i really never know who had and its a very difficult task. We spent the first part of our survival time just learning how to control the spacecraft in this mode. Our second milestone was what was known as the plus 2 burn. The first was to get us back on a free return, the second was to get us back early. The nominal flight time was 155 hours but because the ground calculated consumables and fred was also doing the back of the envelope type calculation which he figured if we were lucky we had one hour spare consumables left before we landed. The ground had decided to burn at about 2 hours past the moon, about 79 hours of maneuvers to shorten the time to get home again. This was also going to be an automatic burn using the descent propulsion engine. We turned off just about everything and id like to have jack and fred talk about our situation. Well, on the lem side of the house we actually had already canned a pretty good procedure in a book called the contingency checklist which was pretty appropriate. And i guess well, first of all a back up to the consumable business the one hour reserve i computed was on water and that was on a longer return. As soon as we got the second burn in but at any rate i guess everybody myself included got a little bit fooled how low the lem actually could get down to. And after completing this down settled on consuming about 11 amps an hour. And that combined with the command module being completely inert led us to another environmental problem which jim will discuss again very shortly. On the command module side of the house as soon as i found that i had the batteries on the line also to help out fuel cell two, and just prior or subsequent, we set all the switches in a basic switch configuration, so the ground and us could work from a standard switch configuration, and then we began a series of procedures. We were interested in did we indeed have a main bust b or had we lost it. We didnt want to sleep too much. We said we would just relax and have it nice and dark in here, and i woke up a couple hours later and i was freezing. We got the window shades off and the spacecraft never did warm up again. Along with that, the walls were perspiring and it was not too healthy, and we went in to get hot dogs one day and it was like reaching into the freezer for the food. As they read this thing, jim and i constructed one of these things. At this point i think the carbon pressure was about 15 millimeters, and we constructed two of these things and put them online and within an hour the pressure seal was down to 0. 2. We never did use the main canister that they had in reserve for the lunar module. He had an extra set of underwear so he put that on. One of the biggest problems we had was one which might have hurt our trajectory, and that was that we didnt want to dump things overboard, and as it turned out it was more of an imagi imaginary problem. They said we are tracking you and we want to make sure you can come back and hit the proper angle to reenter. Fred, tell them what we did with all that stuff. The things we had, they were a backup provided mode of operation in case the normal system failed in the command module, but they did have a reservoir. We also have a bladder apparatus we each wear under the suit, and that was the only unnatural gear we had for this sort of storage, and so we looked around and we have a tank that is mounted in back of where the flight data file is located on the left side, and its purpose is when you are refilling on the lunar saurface some of the water outside of the vess vessel is allowed to escape and its supposed to drain into the tank. We found a combination to hookup to the fitting that went to this tank. So that saved us for a little while. Then after that got full, we looked around some more and we had come across two bags, fairly large bags, and they were about that long that were in the lim, and their purpose was in fact there was one of them i showed on the tv show. Later on, you may get to see that piece of gear. It involved the use of a sixfoot long hose, and we succeeded is using both of those large bags for sewage. I was going to show it to him. Oh, okay. So you see that survival now became one of of initiative and ingenuity, and it was one in which the ground continually helped us. We had all kinds of people on the ground thinking up ways of extending our lifetime. We were also thinking of ways of using a system to use for oxygen, or the emergency oxygen supply in case we ran out. But as the flight progressed, the ground calculating our consumables saw we were actually using less power, less water, less oxygen, and our canisters were holding up quite well, so it was Getting Better all the time, fortunately. We did power down everything, though. About 105 hours, the ground after tracking realized we were not on a trajectory that would get us safely back home, and that we would have to make another maneuver. By this time the crew stations became a lot different. There are three people in the lunar module now, usually built for two, because the cold had driven jack away from the module, and jacks engine was on top of the s cam overseeing what fred and i were doing. This last maneuver was going to be unique, we did not have the platform fired up, so we did not have what we usually did to perform the burn. On apollo 8, sometime ago we were afraid of losing something on the platform on the way home, and we were trying to figure out ways to make the corrections at home. Some of the people here gave up the idea about using the terminator of the earth to orient the spacecraft and the sun position to get the pitch, and with that knowledge we could make corrections to correct our angle of entry into the atmosphere. It is only at about 2 degrees. They gave us instructions to relight the engine and orient the spacecraft in this manner and give this particular procedure a try. When they read off the procedure to us, i could not believe it, because even on apollo 8 i never thought i would have to use something way out as Something Like this, and here i was on apollo 13 using a procedure that was developed sometime ago. Because it was a manual burn, we had a threeman operation. Jack would tell us when to light it and stop it, and i handled the role maneuver and i pushed the buttons to start and stop the engine, so maybe we ought to recommend a threeman team next time, i dont know. Again after this maneuver we were again powered down and it became one of just merely hanging on our maneuvers from then on were drifting and they were done to keep the thermal control as even as possible. And we went that way down to about five hours down to entry where by throughout the night and throughout the days we were working with degrees in the simulators and crews to set up procedures that we would be able to follow to make a successful entry. I kind of think one of the most important point thats could be made of this flight is the cooperation and the coordination and the initiative that people have when suddenly faced with an unusual situation that can respond to come up with the answers. They read us up procedures and practiced the procedures and completed them. They responded so fast to get this job done. We were in a different situation now, normally you only have the command and Service Module. So all we had to get rid of was this Service Module, and coming home now we had a dead Service Module, a command phaud module, a lunar module, and a wonderful vehicle. And they are saying im going to go with misfin and i said we dont have one, so you will have to just cross your fingers. Meanwhile, i am back in a tunnel hoping nothing happened. And the procedure went well, we used a push and pull method, and using the controller for velocity, and when jim yelled fire, i serviced the module and it went off with a lot of debris which is usual and jim tried to pitch around to try to photograph it. You might tell them about the you got the first look, and the ground told us that the best view of the Service Module was through the number five window. The fours had pitched the rest. You might see what we have now. If you got rid of all this, now we have a command and lunar module together, which is a different combination and never had this before. It pitched down instead of going straight, and instead of pitching up right away i couldnt see it, and jack couldnt see it, and finally i started to pitch up, and through the overhead window up here, i finally caught sight of the Service Module as it tumbled around in view. It was to me an amazing sight. I didnt realize this whole panel by the antenna was blown clean off. It was right along the area where the panel swings open. I could see the interior. I could not see what was damaged, i could see material hanging out for the interior and about that time because my description would not be as good as a picture. Jack then knowing that he didnt see anything from his window started to come down through the tunnel to the left and fred got his cameras ready and the spacecraft maneuvered to a point where the Service Module was visible and the front window and fred and jackson were taking pictures trying to capture some of the damage that we can see. The remainder of the flight went just as the ground had told us to do it. We had kept in that position. I got an alignment from the earth, moon, and soon which was good enough to transfer back to jack a rough alignment so he could get one in the command module. He started to get this alignment. And it ask a triangular window while theyre powering up, and even though it is not noticeable to me it looked like it was getting bigger and bigger. And i kept yelling how are you coming, are you fine . When can i leave . He was a little nervous. When he says he kept asking. He said how are you coming, the earth is getting bigger. I think he was trying to hurry me, but i dont know. Jack did a fine job, he got very good alignment. Finally when he got it powered up, the lunar module looked like a packed garbage can. We had big bags of degree that we accumulated and i went from the lunar module, closed the hatch, and it came in with a recovery that i think you saw better on tv they we felt on the spacecraft. When you were coming down that manual places of alignment, particularly again about when the critical helium tank bursts, i understand when you did a nonpurpletion maneuver, you were coming in the right way . Well, that was a lot of unfortunate incidents in 13. It would make it really an unlucky flight. I thought it was the worst possible time for this to happen, but it wasnt. We were lucky in the fact that we had a base support that was well receptive to immediate organization and getting us the problems and the procedures to continue. That we were extremely lucky on. We found out that we could operate the spacecraft and do procedures with a lot less systems than we anticipated. I was very reluctant to turn off the guidance system, the platform, because i knew once we did 7 and could not see stars outside the windows, sespeciall because of the debris, i knew it would be difficult to get an alignment on my own. These were areas we were lucky in. What did you have in mind when you made a remark i think this will be the last moon flight for a long time . Thats a good question. Of course you must remember our positions. We were going around the moon and we didnt know what happened. I had been there, and fred and jack were taking pictures, and i said come on, we have a burn to go into in two minutes or two hours. At that time, not knowing what we were going to do, and i perhaps thought this was going to be the last moon flight for a long time, and looking back on it now and looking at the way nasa has responded in helping us get home and analyzing the thing, i dont believe that anymore. I think we will be one where we can analyze our problems, and i think we can get our incident over with and can charge ahead. I would not be scared to fly with the fix. Jim, speaking of that subject, flying again, you said it would be your last flight but that you did want to walk on the moon before giving up flying. How do you feel now . Would you want to go back and take a crack at apollo 14, 15 and 16, or has maryland im very disappointed as fred and jack is that we could not complete the mission. We spent a lot of time on it, but this was my fourth, and there are many people who want to fly, who deserve to fly, and are talented enough to fly. They deserve the mission. If they feel that 15 should go back there, im willing to go back but i think other people ought to do. Youre ready to go back . You dont feel cheated . I would like to land it on the moon, but perhaps what we got out of the flight was also well worth it. In that connection we were told at all of the briefings before the flight that apollo 13s flight plan was important for the science you would get off of the moon but because of the pathfinder photography you would do subsequent to the landing. Do you think it will be necessary to refly the apollo 13 profile, and if so what crew would be Better Qualified for it than the one which trained for it for three years . On two days notice, jack could be placed, ken is the pestest best pilot, he knew that module better than anyone. Any crew put together can do any job. And if the scientists feel it is necessary to revisit, i think any crew can take the work that we did and improve upon it and do a good job. Are you saying young, mattingly, and duke would be a good crew . First, im not in the selection of people that fly spacecraft and im not in the scientific area to find out what areas should be revisited. We lost one lunar landing. We didnt make it. If it is worth it, our training, there is a lot to offer, then we should go back there. This is up for larger decisions and longer lead decisions. This is i wonder if the newcomers to the moon could tell us their impressions of it as they went whizzing by . We had already been told by jim what color it is. But i think my impression of it as we passed, the closest we got was 137 miles, and i think i have about the same impressions as the man that have visited previously. Very stark. It is desolate. Almost awesome in its desolation. We didnt get the chance because we were going to be doing a burn to really do any summation. What implications if any could this accident on apollo 13 have on future missions and deep Space Missions like mars or venus . Fred . Im not sure there is any sort of direct correlation that i can think of with exception maybe bringing home some of the problems and concerns. And making sure Environmental Control system can work equally well to keep their occupants comfortable for a normal operating level as well as emergency levels. Tim, you said people saw a better recovery than what we saw on the spacecraft, can you comment on what your feelings were at the time of splash down . When we hit the water, we were very happy to be back home and we commented on that fact. The recovery of 13 was almost textbook recovery. It was a calm day. The actual flash down itself was very mild, and the did a grand job. Im not prejudice of course, but we were, of course, disappointed that we did not complete the mission. How about the other two of you tells us how you feel about flying again and what experience meant in terms of your professional careers . I think what this has done for me, if anything, it has increased my confidence in the ability of this nations pace program to take an unusual situation and react to it and come out with a successful conclusion. I consider the recovery of the crew a successful mission, but i have nothing but the utmost appreciation for the people on the ground that worked tireless hours to get us back. I guess i might answer that by saying that some time this year ill have had 15 years with nasa and i dont figure ill retire for another 30 maybe, so ill just do whatever job the agency decides is the best place i can be and can contribute the most. Was there ever a moment where you or any other member of the group thought you did not have enough consumables to make it back and if so what were you feeling . As i said, our feelings varied during the emergency. There was moments i didnt know how much consumables we had. In one situation like that it is something you do, you just keep going and you just think about where you can get more consumables. And that is exactly what we did. Have you made any recommendations thus far on changes and procedures or redesigning of equipment based on your experience . No, this will all take place in the coming weeks. Looking at the Service Module, one of you said i think the explosion, from what i could see had stages, what made you think so and do you still think so. . The explosion what sir . The stages. I dont recall that incident. I was the first one to see it, and i said it looked like a mess and i could see the panel missing, but i dont recall any of the comments that i made. Terry . Thank you. Gentlemen, all the time that you were in trouble coming back, you were obviously extremely grateful and you have told it again and again, for the cooperation of the ground crew and rightly so naturally, was there an apairness or the same sort of awareness of an Infinite Power watching you to get down. Were you aware of that . If youre asking whether or not i prayed, i certainly did. I had no doubt that my prayers and the prayers of the rest of the people contributed a lot for us getting back. At one point, there was a comment about the flight plan being read up to you and it was akin to reading war and peace over the air, i wounder what it was like to take it down. This was the i assume the procedure in the command module that was lengthy. One of the things that is evidence with this thing, we really threw away the book, we never powered down a command module in space. We never reactivated one, and we wanted to get it right, so i read back every switch and circuit breaker, and it was a lengthy procedure and it was one worked out and verify by the ground and its success is, i think, well documented. Jim, did you notice any unusual vibration with the j2 shutdown, and if so could it have had any affect at all on the Service Module . We noticed a vibration just prior to and during the number 5 engine shutting down on the boost phase, but i have no evidence to say yes or no on that. A question for whoever wants to answer it. Would you tell us twice during the mission, you asked the ground if the flowers were blooming in houston yet, and aspoeurp apparent apparently it was a code and can you explain that . And there is a movement in wisconsin for you to run against the senator there, would you comment on that . Yeah, they the first question, it was a code that we had worked out, really, and in asking a question about kens condition, as to the weather, if he had come down with the measles or not. And we are still waiting for ken to come down with the measles. Jim, what about your political oh, jack, would you like to answer that question . No, i dont have any political affiliations in the state of wisconsin at this moment. Is there anything you i had no qualms about it at the time. I was not thinking because i knew we were reentering very shortly, and i had questions as to if the heat panel could take it. I had no qualms at all. I dont know if youre aware how thick it is, but it takes a lot to damage that and i had no qualms at all. Jim, you were faced with a perhaps a precise of a flying job as you will ever face, but you say you had to fly a new method, will you elaborate a little on how you worked it out . Well, the methods of flying in a stack as you see here had been worked out before with crews and its a procedure we practiced for, which is as slowing down to go into lunar orbit, if something happened to the propulsion system on the main engine, we might have to use a dips burn to get us back home again, and to control this system, if the automatic control is not working, it requires a translation controller. Fred and i practiced that in the previous crews, and thats how we flew this particular device. In part of our power down sequence, we had to power down the attitudes, the fdis as we call them. I can go into what we call a gymable walk and we could use our alignment that way. It was not obvious on how to fly these models as it was as looking at the fdai. It is an area where we had to look at the computer that read out these various angels. This is a new mode of operation that we have practiced before, no one has flown it in flight were, but it worked out quite well. In light of the experience that you had on this flight, it would be advisable to stay on a what do you think that would limit future flights too much on at a particular time or place . I think it would probably limit our Flight Operations somewhat, and i think the fact that we were not on one when the incident occurred and the fact that we could get back on one indicates that its not required to stay on one during most of our lunar missions. I would like to ask jack, as a last man of substitution, did you at anytime have any doubt of your ability to step in 24 hours before and fly an aircraft or spacecraft . No, not really. The only apprehension i had, is that you Work Together as a crew, and i had not had much experience, i just worked with jim and fred once or twice previous. We did find the two days we had working together that we did almost everything the same, and once this was determined i had no apprehension at all. I felt it was my job to get jim and fred there rested and i felt i could do that and accomplish the majority of the flight, and i felt we had a good mission and could do it all. Captain, did you consider at the time and do you consider now this could have been a Meteor Strike or something internal . Well, the thought crossed our minds that it could have been a meteorite. I dont know the answer, but i know whatever went in caused a large bang to blow it out, and thats all i know about that so far. After two days of debriefing could you give us the best cause of what blew your oxygen tank and ended your mission to the moon . I dont think i can. I dont think im in position to because our debriefing so far have been from the crews point of view. It is unique, we were a few feet away from the accident, but the people on the ground had a lot more information than we had concerning pressures and temperatures and possible causes of the accident, and perhaps have a better indication right now than we do of exactly what caused it. Referred to whether or not the apollo 13 crew might fly again, we are informed today that such discussion did take place at debriefing, and i wonder if you could confirm this and tell us under what circumstances it would . No discussion of that nature had taken place at any debriefing. If the agency wants this crew to go back tomorrow, we will be glad to go. If they decide to send another crew or not to go, thats their decision. Physically speaking, what hardship did you suffer from the most. Was it cold, lack of sleep, cramped conditions . Sorry, i didnt understand the question. What were the worst physical hardships for you, was it the cold, the lack of sleep, the uncomfortable position . Well, it certainly was the combination of all of those, but the over powering one was the slow chill until about the last 15 or 16 hours. It was just well, we were just chilled down to the bone from there on in. We did not really get warmed up until we went through the power up and started getting the lim back up and started to get comfortable again. Along with this hardship, the lack of sleep, at least two occasions it was recommended that you might want to take a stimulant. Did you do anything to get yourself up for the reentry . We took that just prior to reentry. We didnt want to take it too early because i was afraid with the lack of sleep in my condition, if the affects wore off i would be in worse condition than i was right there, and i didnt feel too tired. You work on a lot of Nervous Energy in this particular situation, and i didnt want to suddenly get exhausted whereby i was not in good shape. I would like to address this question to jack. This is a lighter question. Has anybody nominated you as bachelor of the year being the first bachelor to go into space . No, maam, they havent. I think on that profound question we will knock it off and we thank you very much. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv airing now during the week while members of congress are working in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Former Bush Administration officials Megan Osullivan and pete fever talk about their roles to increase american troop levels in iraq and their efforts to document these efforts in an oral history called the last card. This is the first of three programs on the surge that will air tonight at 8 00 eastern. It will be at the Southern Methodist university in texas. American history tv now and over the weekend on cspan 3. When it comes to trying to keep people from gathering together, how close are we to remote voting in that building behind me. Is one chamber closer to that happening than the other . No, it doesnt seem like it. Is there some type of guideline there . I think this virus is, of course, it is more transmisable. Do you have any way to push Disaster Recovery preparedness to it is more of a top priority instead of the second most important priority . Im smiling as you say that because im shocked that you said second, often times i think it is dead last. Share your experiences dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and ask experts your questions. Join our live conversation every morning on washington journal connecticut, and more live conversations weeknights at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on washington journal primetime. Up next on cspan 3, an oral history with former astronaut james lovell. He was commander of apollo 13 in 1970, a mission to land on the moon that