Fifty-one years ago this month, NASA’s Apollo 13 mission would have been the agency’s third Moon landing and lunar exploration mission. A movie and several books relate the story of this challenging mission which has been described as a “successful failure.”
“Never again” is the phrase echoed among NASA leaders recalling the last major tragedy in the space program that occurred 20 years ago this week, when Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, never making its way back home to Florida.
Even though Space Shuttle Columbia's tragedy is two decades in the past, with more spacecraft, more players and farther-flung destinations like the moon and Mars, the potential for another disaster has grown.