The apollo 13 crew, captain james lovell, captain John Swaggart mr. Fred haise. I would like to start by saying i am not a superstitious person. Therefore, when we were assigned apollo 13, i thought nothing of it. Some said 13 was a lucky number and were happy i got that number. It started just before the flight, as was documented. As we were approaching the final phase of training, the last couple of days are usually taken very leisurely, keeping a couple of days free to unwind from the long Training Cycle and get rest so that when we launch, we are in good shape. As you know, a turn of events occurred and ken mattingly, our command module pilot, was exposed to the measles, we had to make the decision to bring jack along. They asked what i wanted to do because we worked as a team for a long time, but i realized the Space Program had matured to that degree whereby we had quite a few people who were well knowledgeable about the spacecraft and well to fly. As a consequence, on friday we decided to take jack. I would like to say right now i have never regretted that decision. We as a team and john can particular helped us out in our ensuing odyssey tremendously. I would like to break off a second and introduce a couple of other people of our team that also served, although not in the same position as we were. Marilyn . This is my wife marilyn. [applause] and this is my wife mary. [applause] i think the entire crew of continental storage is here tonight for jack. [laughter] [applause] jack had a lot of help from his wife. [laughter] the launch saturday morning was not unusual. It was a nominal launch. It seemed even a lot easier than i had experienced on apollo eight. Lift off came just as i had known it before. Communications were excellent, and the entire boost phase was compared very favorably to what i had experienced for, except during the s2 burn, at which case i noticed the inboard lights come on in the second stage, indicating an engine had shut down. I followed normal procedure and realized it had come about two minutes early, ground confirmed this and as a result we had an early engine out in the second stage and our total boosting time was about one minute longer. This would not impair our flight, however. We had enough fuel to relight the third stage and go on in a trajectory towards the moon. The flight, up until about 56 hours, was what you would call entirely nominal. We followed the flight plan. We were ahead of the game. It took us a little longer to get rid of our pressure suits than we thought, and we had asked the ground at about 55 hours if we could indeed get into the lunar module three hours early. The flight plan called to go to the spacecraft at 58 hours. The ground said fine, why dont you open up the lem and do your housekeeping chores . There was an Engineering Task we had to perform, and with that was a Television Program we were set to put on. We decided to open up the lunar module, fred went into the spacecraft, went down, looked at the super helium, the critical helium on the the critical pressure on the super helium tank to make sure it was nominal. It was. Then we put on the tv show which was called for in the flight plan. I guess the show lasted about a halfhour, and just after we turned off the camera, fred was still in the lunar module, jack was in the command module on the lefthand seat and i was in between in the lower equipment bay, wrestling with td wires at the camera and watching fred coming down, when all three of us heard a rather large bang, just one bang. Now before that, fred being in the lunar module had actuated a valve which nominally gives us that same sound. Since he didnt tell us about it, we all jumped in sort of worried about it, but it was his joke and we all thought it was a lot of fun at the time. So when this bang came, we really didnt get concerned right away. But i looked at fred and fred had that expression like, it wasnt his fault. [laughter] we suddenly realized Something Else had occurred, but exactly what, we didnt know. I would like to let fred and jack explain what their impressions were at this same instance that i heard the explosion in the lower equipment bay. Jack. I had felt a vibration accompanying the bang, not a large vibration, or a shudder. I proceeded to look at jim at about the same time, i guess about two seconds had lapsed when i had a master alarm and a main interval. I transmitted to houston that we had a problem, and proceeded to the righthand side of the spacecraft to look at the voltage. The voltage at that time was normal. The current was not high, and the fuelcell flows was normal, which indicated that whatever it was, it was some sort of transient that didnt exist at that time. Me, being a command module pilot, and the source of the bang not immediately determinable, i thought it had occurred in the lem, and i said lets sit back and lets get the hatch in here and think about it, because we had the tunnel open at this time and thought we might be vulnerable to losing pressure. So i proceeded to get the hatch in, to begin installing the hatch. And by this time, fred 20 to the lunar modules pilots couch, and i will let him tell his observations about instruments and other caution warning alarms. Mr. Haise first of all, due to my position being a lot more familiar with the lem, my first impulse on feeling this shudder and explosion was to make sure the lem hatch, and this induced voltage on the other main buss. That is when i got smart and thought i should look at the other fuel cells, which i hadnt even considered had a problem. I found fuelcell one not outputting any amps. From this point on, we were under the hands of houston, troubleshooting and looking at more dials, another metering the led, and eventually we got to a point where houston called and asked us to shut down fuelcell three. We shut down the valve and i ask for a reconfirmation, since when you do that it is sometimes irreversible when you shut one of these things down. It can only be restarted from Ground Support equipment. And they assured me they really meant it, so i went through with it and subsequently, the same command was given for fuelcell one. About this point, the pressure, the oxygen pressure had gone in tank two. Tank two, and the pressure in tank one was steadily decreasing. It was obvious it wasnt holding its own. And right about then it was apparent to me it was a question of time that the command module was going to be dead, it was going to lose that fuel cell also. So i lost interest in that position and headed for the when jim noticed we had considerable venting outside the command module, it indicated we were losing the liquid material from the area of the surface module Service Module, so it indicated we truly had a problem in the Service Module. When you first hear of this explosion or bank, you dont know what it is. We have had similar sounds in the spacecraft before, that were for nothing. And the impression was when we came back that we had an electrical problem that caused the 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. It went into that type of seriousness. And when i looked up and saw both oxygen pressures, one actually zero and one going down, it dawned on me and fred and jack about the same time that we were indeed in serious trouble. It was apparent, and the ground told us so, they were on the ball all the time, that the only way to survive was to transfer to the lem. At that time fred went into the lem, got out our activation checklist, a checklist that is normally not used until prior to firing up firing up the lem to detach from the command module and prepared to go down to the surface. The first milestone, and i consider this after the accident, more or less survival now, the first milestone was to get alignment on the lem platform. Alignments are important because, without knowing exactly which way the altitude of the spacecraft in space is, there is no way of knowing how to burn or use the engines of the spacecraft to get a proper trajectory to come home. So we had to have an alignment on board the spacecraft. We knew the command module was going to lose it pretty soon, because we were going to lose power. So as we worked, fred and i went into the lunar module, fred got the power on, we started to widen the platform. We used a procedure in the activation checklist, checked angles, there was 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 the arithmetic was correct, i called down to the gauntlet to do the math, came back and i put it in. But we did get a platform alignment, and that was our first milestone. From then on it was an entirely different situation. Up until the incident, normal command is in the command module. Control is by the Service Module engines as far as attitude control. But we transferred our command to the lunar module, and were using the lunar body will engines for control. We had done some practice in this before, but never thought we would ever have to use it in a particular control situation. And to get control of this vehicle and pitch, you have to use one translation controller in one way, and roll in another way, and you can use the aca. So what we did, fred would handle one part of the control and i would handle the other, and controling the maneuverability of the spacecraft. We also had back here, Service Module completely filled with main engine fuel. We had used very little of it, just in one small, midcourse term. We also had rcs engines that were almost completely filled with fuel. An important point at this time is the fact that we had gotten off what we call the prereturn trajectory. We had done our midcourse maneuver sometime before, and this meant we were no longer on a path that would allow us to be slung around the moon and come back toward the landing spot on the earth. We had gotten office trajectory because we wanted to go to our landing site. The first thing the ground told us to do was to turn this engine, to get us back on that prereturn trajectory, which was going to get us up in the indian ocean. I think i lost track of oceans. It was the indian ocean at about 155 hours. 155 hours. The controllability of the spacecraft was ok as long as we had our indicators up, because we had practiced that. But to save power we shut that down for a while, and had to control it by looking at our computer display. I had never tried that before. I really dont know who had, and it is a very difficult task. We spent a lot of the first part of our emergency time just putting the spacecraft in this mode. Our second milestone was the burn. The first maneuver was to get us back ready for return and the second was to get us home early. The nominal flight time back home was 155 hours, if we had done nothing else, but because consumables were critical, and the ground was calculating consumables and fred was also doing back of the envelope type calculation, which, he figured if we were lucky we had one hour of spare controllables left before related. We had decided, and the ground had decided, to burn about two hours past 79 hours, i maneuver to shorten the time to get home. This was also going to be an automatic burn from the propulsion engine, and this burn was also very successful. After that, the ground was concerned with power. We were too, and we decided to go into a powerdown mode. We turned off just about everything. I would like to have jack and fred tell about our powerdown situation and some of our survival and environmental problems. On the lem side of the house, we had already done the procedures in a book called the contingency checklist. First of all, backup to the consumables, that one hour reserve i computed was with water and that was on a longer return. So as soon as we got the second burn in, we got a lot more padding. But at any rate, everybody, myself included, got a little bit fooled about how low the lem could actually get down to. After completing this powerdown, it settled down on consuming about 11 amps per hour. With the command module being inert, that led us to another environmental problem which jim will discuss. On the command module side of the house, as soon as i found that i had the batteries on the line also, fuel cell two, and as soon as i ascertained jim and fred had powered up the lem, we shut down and fuel cell two gave out on us. We powered down at command module completely. Just subsequent to paris and the and plus two just prior, we set the command model into basic configuration, standard switch configuration that works from the ground. Then we began a series of procedures. We were interested in, did we indeed have a main bust, or did we lost it or had we lost it . I went in there one time to go to sleep and jack was on the couch and i said jack, put up the window shades, lets get this space nice and dark and let us relax and have it nice and dark and we can get some sleep, and i woke up a couple of hours later, and i was freezing. As normally happens, putting up window shades in space cuts out the sunlight and normally cools down the spacecraft. But in most flights, heats from the systems would rewarm us. But we got the window shades off after that and the spacecraft never did warm up again. The command module steadily kept going down in temperature i think until just prior to reentry, it was down to about 38 degrees. Along with that was a chilling coldness, the walls were perspiring, the windows were wet, and it wasnt completely healthy. We went in there for some hotdogs one day and was like entering the freezer for food. Jack, tell them about innovations the ground gave us, hydroxide canisters. We did have a shortage of lithium hydroxide. The ground read us a procedure in order to adapt lithium hydroxide canisters for use in the lem. And as they read this thing up, jim and i constructed one of these things. I think at this point the partial pressure of Carbon Dioxide was reading at 15 millimeters. We constructed two of these and put them online and i think within an hour, the partial pressure of co2 was down to 2 10. So these were very effective devices. And we used four of these, the command module canisters, and never did use the main canister we had in reserve for the lunar module. As the temperature went down, we became concerned about keeping warm. Fred and i broke out our lunar boots, which we had stowed away in the module. Jack looked at his wet feet a couple of times, but he had an extra set of underwear, so he put that on. We had a third sleep restraint which fred puts on and kept a little warm. One of the biggest problems was one which might have hurt our trajectory, and that was that we didnt want to dump things overboard. As it turned out later on, it was more of an problem than we thought at the time. However, we were told dont throw any wastewater dumps over the side because it might change the trajectory and we are tracking you, and we want to make sure you come back at the proper angle to reenter. Fred, tell them what we did with all that stuff. [laughter] well, the things we had on board that were built for that sort of purpose work three bags on board the command module, about that size square, network really that were really a backup, provided for a backup mode of operation if the main system failed in the command module froze up. On board the lem for draining out the soup on the lunar surface, we had six bags about this size in the lem. Beyond that we had the three ecds, bladders that we each wear normally under the suit. That was about the only natural gear that we had. We looked around and in the lem, we had a tank that was mounted in the back of where the flight data file is located on the left side, and the tanks purpose is that purpose is that and the tanks surface is that when you are on the surface, some of the water escapes and is supposed to drain into this tank. So we had enough combination of hoses and disconnect between the two vehicles, using both lem and command module gear, that we found accommodation that we could hook up our ucds with a fitting that went to the tank. So that saved us for a little while. After that when it got full, we looked around some more and came across two fairly long two fairly large bags that were about that long, they were in the lem. And we were to use these bags to drain the remaining water and determine how much water we had left. Again, that turned out to be kind of where to get it to drain into that bag, but it involved the use of a six foot hose with a key in the middle in this bag middle and this bag, so we succeeded in using both of those large bags. So you can see that survival now became one of initiative and ingenuity, and one which the ground continually helped us along. We had all kinds of people on the ground trying to think of ways of extending our lifetime. We were also looking for ways to use the system, use it for oxygen or our emergency oxygen supply, in case we ran out. But as the flight progressed with the ground calculating our consumables, and they found we were using less power, less water, less oxygen and our lithium hydroxide canisters were holding up quite well. So it was Getting Better all the time, fortunately. We did power down everything though, and at about 105 hours, the ground after subtracting realized they that we were not om our trajectory that we would be able to safely back on, and we would have to make another maneuver. By this time, the crew stations became a lot different. There were three people in the lunar module now, usually built for two, because control had driven jack away from the command module in jacks normal position was on top the engine cam overseeing what fred and i were doing. This last maneuver was going to be unique, because we did not have the platform powered up, so we didnt have a normal method of determining the attitude of the spacecraft in order to perform the burn. On apollo eight some time ago, we were concerned with perhaps losing the platform on the return voyage, but since no one had ever made a lunar trip before, we came up with some way out ways of determining how we could make these corrections, and someone here came up with the idea of using the terminator of the earth to orient the spacecraft and use the sun position to get orientation and pitch and with that knowledge we could then make corrections to correct our angle of entry into the atmosphere. And as you know, the angle of entry into the atmosphere is a very small angle, only about two degrees, so it has to be controlled very carefully. At 105 hours they give us instructions to greenlight the engines and orient the spacecraft in this matter and give this procedure a try. When they read the procedure to us, i couldnt believe it, because even on apollo 8, i never thought in all the world i would have to use anything as way out as all this, and here i was on apollo 13 using the same procedure that was developed some time ago. This maneuver was completed on time, and because it was a manual burn, we had a threeman operation. Jack would take care of time and tell us when to light off the engine and went to stop, fred had built fred handled the pitch maneuver and i pushed the buttons to start and stop the engines. Maybe we should recommend a threeman limit. I dont know a3man recommend a threeman lem. I dont know. We were drifting to keep the thermal control in the spacecraft as even as possible so one side wouldnt cool off too much of the other side wouldnt eat up wouldnt heat up. Our flight progressed that way down until about five hours prior to entry, and in the days prior to this thing the ground was working feverishly with engineers, looking at the systems, to read to us a set of procedures which we would be able to follow to make a successful entry. I think one of the most important points that can be made of this flight is the cooperation, coordination, and Initiative People have when suddenly faced with an unusual situation, and can respond to come up with the answers. And they read us procedures, fred, jack and i practiced each procedure by reading them, and then completed them. It is amazing the way people can respond so fast to get this job done. We were in a different situation now, because normally when you come home, you normally have the command and Service Module. You generally get rid of the Service Module just prior to reentry in the atmosphere. Coming home though, we had a command module of that had no power, we had a lunar module that was a wonderful vehicle to travel home with, but didnt have a heatshield, fortunately heatshield, unfortunately, and we would have to abandon her. I said fred, we dont up telemetry. You have to put your fingers in your ears and standby. I armed the a system and Nothing Happened and i armed the b system and Nothing Happened, so i thought we were home free. With an open vent, that doesnt happen. [laughter] the procedure went well. We used eight pushpull method and jim and fred were in the lem to give us velocity, and jim yelled fire and i jettisoned the Service Module. It went off and missed a lot of debris, which is usual, jim began to pitch around to try to photograph it. Fred, you might tell them. He got the first look. The ground told us the best window from the command module the best view from the command module was through the window. When jack jettisoned the Service Module he went to the number five window. We got rid of all this and now we have a command module and lunar module together, an unusual combination if youve never flown before, forced the lunar module to pitch down rather than go straight. Instead of pitching up, i couldnt see it and jack couldnt see it. Then it finally started pitching up and through this overhead window, this docking window, 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 high gain antenna was blown off, right along the area where the panel normally swings open, i could see the interior, i couldnt see what was damaged, i could see material hanging out from the interior. And about that time, because my description wouldnt be half as good as the photograph, we had three cameras and they started taking pictures from this little docking window. Jack then, knowing he didnt see anything from his window, started coming down through the tunnel to the lem and fred, meanwhile, had his cameras ready and they spacecraft and the spacecraft had maneuvered to a point where the module was visible through the front window. Jack was taking pictures and fred was taking pictures, trying to capture damage. The remainder of the flight went just as the ground told us to do it. We kept in that position. I had gotten an alignment of the earth and the moon and the sun, which was good enough to transfer back to jack, a rough alignment so that he could get a very fine alignment in the command module. And at 2. 5 hours, he started powering up and getting this alignment. I was by myself in the lunar module and i could see the earth from the nice, big triangular window. Fred and jack were powering the command module and even though it wasnt noticeable to me, it looked like it was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It kept going to jack, how are you doing, fin find, when can i leave aquarius how are you doing, fine, when can i leave aquarius . Jack, when are you coming, earth is getting bigger. [laughter] it was accountable for some of our good, automatic guidance into aligning. When he finally got the alignment and all powered up, by that time the lunar module looked just like a packed garbage can. We had big bags full of debris we had accumulated in the six days, and i then went from the lunar module, closed the hatch, came down, and we jettisoned the lunar module and came in with the recovery, which i think you people saw better on tv than we saw it in the spacecraft. When you were coming down that manual, and particularly when a supercritical helium tank burst, i understand when you were doing a nonpropulsive remover, nonpropulsive maneuver, you were suddenly rocking in the right way. There were a lot of unfortunate incidents in 13 would make an unlucky flight. At the time it happened, i thought it was the worst possible time. It was obviously not the worst possible time for this particular incident to happen. We were lucky in the fact that we had a base of support that was perceptive to immediate organization, and the problem and gave us the process and procedures to continue. We found out 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 that once i did that, and we could not see stars outside the window, especially because of the debris flying out there in the venting from the Service Module, that it would be difficult to get an alignment on my own. These are the areas that we were lucky in. What did you have in mind when you made the remark, i think this is going to be the last moon flight or a long time . Good question. You must realize our position. We were going around the moon, and we looked at the moon, i had been there and fred and jack were taking pictures and i said, we have a burn to go into in two hours a burn to go into in two hours. We were taking as many pictures as possible. I thought that this was perhaps could be that this perhaps could be the last Lunar Mission for a long time. I dont believe that anymore. I think it is going to be one where we can analyze our problems, and i foresee we can get this incident over with and charge ahead. Speaking of that subject, flying again, you have told us that this was going to be your last flight, but that you did want to walk on the moon. How do you feel now, would you take a crack at we wanted to complete the the mission. We certainly wanted to make a lunar landing. We spent a lot of time on it, but this was my fourth spaceflight and there are many people who have not flown and who deserve to fly and who are talented enough to fly, and they deserve the mission. If they feel that 15 should go back there, i am certainly willing to go back. Otherwise, other people ought to do it. You dont feel cheated if you dont go back . No. I would of course like to land on the moon, but i think what we got out of this flight was also well worth it. In that connection, we were told in briefings before the flight that the apollo 13 flight plan was very important not only for the science you would get off the moon, but also because of the pathfinder photography you would do subsequent landing. I am wondering that, do you think it will be necessary to refly apollo 13 profile . If so, what crew would be Better Qualified than the one planned for it in three years . As i said, on twodays notice that jack would replace ken, ken knew the flight plan of apollo 13 more than anybody. It is not so much an individual crew anymore at nasa. I think any crew that is put together can do any job. And if scientists think it is necessary to revisit, any crew assigned to that mission can take what we have done, and we have done a lot of groundwork, and improve on it perhaps, and do a good job. To follow up, are you saying that Young Mattingly and duke would be a good crew to fly apollo 13 . And do you think apollo 13 should be reflown . You are asking the wrong person. Im not selecting people who fly spacecraft and i am not in the area to figure out what areas should be revisited. We have lost one lunar landing. If it is worth it and has a lot to offer, we should go back there. We should do that. But this is up for larger decisions. I wonder if the two newcomers to the moon could tell us if they have any impressions as they went whizzing by . We had already been told by jim what color it is. [laughter] no, my impression as we passed it, the closest was 137 miles, and i think i have the same impressions as the men who visited previously, that it is very stark. It is desolate. It is almost awesome in its desolation. And we didnt get the chance, because we were going to be doing a burn, to do any real detailed looking at it. I guess that would be the summation of my feelings, that it was almost awesome in its desolation. What implications, if any, could this accident of apollo 13 have on future apollo missions, and deep space missions, say mars or venus . Fred . [laughter] i am not sure there is any direct correlation i can think up, think of, with the exception of maybe bringing home some of the problems and concerns about power down modes operations, making sure the ground level control system can work equally well to keep documents to keep occupants control, at both normal operating levels and at levels when there is a shut down. You said that you people on tv saw a better recovery then we felt in the spacecraft. Can each of you comment what your feelings were during your time until when we hit the water, we were very happy to be back home. We commented on that fact. The recovery of 13 was almost a textbook recovery. It was a calm day. The splashdown itself was very mild. In the navy did a grand job. I am not prejudiced, of course. But we were disappointed that we did not complete the mission. How about the other two of you telling us about how you feel about flying again, what this experience has meant in terms of your careers . If anything, this has increased my confidence in the ability of this nations Space 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 conclusion. [laughter] but i have nothing but the utmost admiration for the people on the ground who worked tireless hours to get us back. I might answer that by saying that sometime this year i will have had 15 years with nasa. I hope for another 30, maybe. So i will just do whatever job the agency decides is the best place i can be and contribute the most. Captain lovell, was there ever a moment when you and the crew thought you would not have enough consumables to make it back, in those first hours . Our feelings varied during the emergency. There were moments i didnt know how much consumables we had and whether we could make it back or not. But in a situation like that, there is only one thing you can do. You just keep going, and you keep thinking up ways you can work, and so that is exactly what we did. Have you made any recommendations thus far on changes and procedures, or redesign of equipment, based on your experience . No, we havent. All this will be taking place in the ensuing weeks. While looking at the Service Module after you jettisoned it, 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 . Stages, the explosion in stages. I dont recall that incident. I was the first one that to see it and it looked like a mess. But i dont recall any other comment i made. Thank you. Gentlemen, all the time you were in trouble coming back, it you were obviously extremely grateful for the cooperation of the ground crew. Was there an awareness, or the same source of awareness, of the Infinite Power watching over you . Were you aware of that . You are asking whether i prayed . I certainly did. I had no doubt that perhaps my prayers and the prayers of the rest of the people contributed a lot of us contributed a lot to us getting back. At one point prior to jettisoning the lem, there was a comment about the flight plan being read to you and there was a comment of it being war and peace. This was, i assume, the procedure in the command module, which was quite lengthy. One thing that was evident in this thing is that we threw away the book. We had never powered down a command module in space and we had never reactivated one, and we wanted to get it right. So i read back every switch and every circuit breaker, and it was a lengthy procedure. It was one that was worked out and verified by the ground, and its success i think is welldocumented. Jim, did you notice any unusual vibration when the j2 shut down, and if so, could it have any effect on the Service Module trouble . We did notice an unusual vibration just prior to or just during the number five engine on the s2 shutting down. I doubt seriously if it gave any trouble to the Service Module, but i have no evidence to say yes or no on that. A question for whoever wants to answer, twice during the mission you asked the ground if the flowers were blooming in houston yet. Apparently this was a code. Would someone explain . And captain lovell, there is a movement in wisconsin apparently, for you to run against senator william proxmire. [laughter] we wondered if you would comment on that . The first question, it was a sort of code we worked out with our cap comms, really asking a question about kens condition, as to whether he had come down with the measles yet or not. [laughter] and we are still waiting for ken to come down with the measles. [laughter] what about your political future . [laughter] jack, would you like to answer . Now, i dont have any political affiliations in the state of wisconsin. When you saw damage to the Service Module, was there any fear the heatshield might have been damaged by that . I had no qualms about it at the time. I guess i wasnt thinking along those lines, because i knew we were reentering very shortly and regardless to the damage to the heatshield, we had to take it or not take it. I dont know if you are aware how thick the heat shield is, but it takes a lot to damage that. I had no qualms at all. You faced as precise a flying job is perhaps you will ever face, and said you had to fly the lem in a completely new method. Can you elaborate . It had been worked out a before by cruising a procedure that we normally practice for. That is, as we slow down to go into looter orbit, if something happens with the propulsion system on the main engine, we might have to use the dissent propulsion system engine to get us home. This is called a dips burn. To control this system if the automatic control is not working requires this translation controller. Fred and i tried that out with my previous cruise, and that is the way we flew this particular device. Part of our powerdown sequence but in part of our powerdown sequence, we had to powerdown, and because our platforms in apollo are what we call a gimbal lock, we had to make sure the spacecraft and its gyrations wouldnt get to that area. We had a computer which read out these various angles, and it wasnt obvious how to fly from the computer as it was from the fdai. From the command module and the lem, we found the attitude controller itself was etiquette was adequate to control the vehicle. This was a new boat of operation that i dont recall having practiced, and certainly no one has ever flown it in flight before, but the attitude controller itself did quite well. In light of the experience, would it be advisable in the future to always remain on a return trajectory, or would that limit flights too much . I think it would limit our Flight Operations somewhat to be on return trajectory. And i think the fact we were not on one when the incident occurred, the fact we could get back on one, indicates it is not required to stay on during most of our Lunar Missions. I would like to ask jack swiggert, as a lastminute substitution, did you have any doubt of your ability to step in 24 hours before, and fly a spacecraft . No, not really. The only apprehension i had is that, as jim says, you Work Together as a crew, and i hadnt had much experience. I just worked with jim and fred one surprise previous jim and fred once or twice previously. We found in the two days we were working together that we did almost everything the same, and once this was determined come i had no apprehension. I felt it was my job to get jim and fred rested, i thought i could do that. I felt i could accomplish the majority of the orbital science objectives of the flight, and i felt we had a good mission and we could do it all. Captain, did you consider that this could have been a meteorite strike or something internal . This crossed our minds that it could have been a meteorite. I dont have an answer whether it was or not, except the fact the panel was missing, indicating whatever went in must have caused a larger bank to blow the panel completely out larger bang to blow the panel completely out. After two days of debriefing, can you give us an idea of the best possible cause of what lou your tank thats what blew of what blew your tank . I dont thing i can. Our debriefings have been from the crew point of view. Our people on the ground had a lot more information about telemetry then we did concerning pressures and temperatures in possible causes of the accident, and perhaps have a better indication right now than we do. Regarding whether the apollo 13 crew my fly again, we were informed today that such discussion did take place at debriefing. I wonder if you could confirm this, and the circumstances . No discussion of that nature had taken place at any debriefing. If the agency wants this crew to go back, we would be glad to go. If they send another crew, that is their decision. Physically speaking, what hardship did you suffer from most, cold, lack of sleep, cramped conditions . I didnt understand the question . What were the worst physical hardships for you, was it the cold, the lack of sleep or uncomfortable position in the lem . It certainly was a combination of all. The overpowering was a slow chill down until the last 15 or 16 hours. We were chilled down to the bone from there on in and didnt get warmed up until we went to the power up and started getting the lem back up. Because of his lack of sleep, it was indicated you might take a stimulant, dexedrine tablet, did you do anything to get yourself up for reentry . We took dexedrine prior we didnt want to take it to early, because if the effects were off we might be in worse condition than i was there right then. I didnt feel too tired. You work a lot on Nervous Energy in this situation and i didnt want to get exhausted, whereby i wasnt in good shape. I would like to address this question to jack swigert. This is a lighter question. Has anyone nominated u. S. Bachelor of the year, being first bachelor to go into space . No, maam. They havent. [laughter] with that profound question, i think we will knock it off now. Thank you, very much