DBWI: Apollo 13 surviving explosion in space

Whew! It was reassuring to see Jim Lovell and his crewmates splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean yesterday. The entire mission went smoothly and we got amazing pictures of the lunar surface. Yesterday I read that one of the oxygen tanks had to be replaced early in the building stage because the maintenance team found it was damaged and it posed an explosion hazard.

This got me thinking. What if the maintenance workers hadn't discovered the problem? What if the Oxygen Tank had exploded two or three days into the flight? Is such an incident survivable?
 
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OOC: Three days before the launch, they would have been rolling it out onto Launch Complex 39. And the design would make replacing the No.2 Tank at best incredibly difficult.

On top of that, the damaged wiring that caused the Tank to blow IOTL was inside the tank, and could not be seen or fully checked.

It would be much more plausible for the fault to be detected early in the building stage, which would allow it to be rectified long before they even finished building it.
 
OOC: Three days before the launch, they would have been rolling it out onto Launch Complex 39. And the design would make replacing the No.2 Tank at best incredibly difficult.

On top of that, the damaged wiring that caused the Tank to blow IOTL was inside the tank, and could not be seen or fully checked.

It would be much more plausible for the fault to be detected early in the building stage, which would allow it to be rectified long before they even finished building it.
OK, correction made. Thanks.
 
Good Grief, we could have lost Astronauts in space, could you imagine the consequences for the Whole program? Apollo 13 will go down as a lucky number for
Nasa​

BTW I can't wait to get up there in '20
 
If the damaged tank had exploded and damaged the other tanks, it's game over. Hell, even with just one tank online it would be almost impossible to get back.
 
If the damaged tank had exploded and damaged the other tanks, it's game over. Hell, even with just one tank online it would be almost impossible to get back.

Well, if they hadn't spotted the damage in time, it would have blown eventually. The question is when.

I suppose if the No.2 O2 Tank did blow, there would only be one time when it could even be considered survivable. While they were transiting from the Earth to the Moon, while the LEM was still attached to it with its onboard batteries still at full charge.

Now if the damage was light enough - let's say, O2 Tank 1 is still in one piece and they have at least one healthy H2/O2 Fuel Cell that is working properly - they could use what was left in the damaged SM and the still healthy LEM to limp back home.

Even so, that would still constitute an automatic Mission Abort, on top of the odds still being against them.
 

Archibald

Banned
I remember reading some cheesy space thriller (perhaps by Martin Caidin, or Gordon Dickson, can't remember) where an Apollo is crippled on the surface and the crew use the Lunar Module as a shelter - while NASA frantically readies a rescue Saturn V. Yeah, as if the Lunar Module had enough endurance to be used a lifeboat. :rolleyes:
 
I remember reading some cheesy space thriller (perhaps by Martin Caidin, or Gordon Dickson, can't remember) where an Apollo is crippled on the surface and the crew use the Lunar Module as a shelter - while NASA frantically readies a rescue Saturn V. Yeah, as if the Lunar Module had enough endurance to be used a lifeboat. :rolleyes:

If it's the same book I read, I think you may be misremembering the plot. :p The 'rescue mission' was the prototype one-way Moonlab (with fifteen tons of supplies) landed next to Oddessy; which in the book they managed. Of course the fact that Moonlab wasn't built until 1975 is the least of the problems of such a scenario.

There was another Russian rocket which tried to get supplies there too, but gosh darn it the author couldn't let the ruskies get the credit for anything, so he nurfed them excessively.
 
Whew! It was reassuring to see Jim Lovell and his crewmates splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean yesterday. The entire mission went smoothly and we got amazing pictures of the lunar surface. Yesterday I read that one of the oxygen tanks had to be replaced early in the building stage because the maintenance team found it was damaged and it posed an explosion hazard.

This got me thinking. What if the maintenance workers hadn't discovered the problem? What if the Oxygen Tank had exploded two or three days into the flight? Is such an incident survivable?

OCC:
A well crafted DBWI. One thing though, you appear (to me) to be asking readers to respond as if it's April 1970. I can do that, as I around then and glued to my TV, but most around here aren't that old; plus we didn't have the internet back then. ;););):D Seriously though, nicely done.

______________

ICC:

While an oxygen tank explosion, depending on how much damage is done might be survivable, the chances of the astronauts returning to Earth alive and well are astronomically (forgive the unintended pun) slim. NASA's scientists might be smart, but realistically, they don't have the time to come up with a solution (2-3 days tops). Remember too that the solution can only utilize things/items already on-board and accessible to the crew.
 
I remember reading some cheesy space thriller (perhaps by Martin Caidin, or Gordon Dickson, can't remember) where an Apollo is crippled on the surface and the crew use the Lunar Module as a shelter - while NASA frantically readies a rescue Saturn V. Yeah, as if the Lunar Module had enough endurance to be used a lifeboat. :rolleyes:

If it's the same book I read, I think you may be misremembering the plot. :p The 'rescue mission' was the prototype one-way Moonlab (with fifteen tons of supplies) landed next to Oddessy; which in the book they managed. Of course the fact that Moonlab wasn't built until 1975 is the least of the problems of such a scenario.

There was another Russian rocket which tried to get supplies there too, but gosh darn it the author couldn't let the ruskies get the credit for anything, so he nurfed them excessively.

OCC

Guys, sorry, but the movie Marooned (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marooned_(film)) was in theaters 5 months before the mission and the novel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marooned_(novel)) was published in 1964.
 

Cook

Banned
I remember reading some cheesy space thriller (perhaps by Martin Caidin, or Gordon Dickson, can't remember) where an Apollo is crippled on the surface and the crew use the Lunar Module as a shelter - while NASA frantically readies a rescue Saturn V. Yeah, as if the Lunar Module had enough endurance to be used a lifeboat. :rolleyes:
That got made into a telemovie starring O.J. Simpson. This was ages ago, just after Simpson had given up football and long before his wife shot him. His career never really recovered from the controversy following that, he started out making telemovies, and ended up back there.
 
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ICC:

While an oxygen tank explosion, depending on how much damage is done might be survivable, the chances of the astronauts returning to Earth alive and well are astronomically (forgive the unintended pun) slim. NASA's scientists might be smart, but realistically, they don't have the time to come up with a solution (2-3 days tops). Remember too that the solution can only utilize things/items already on-board and accessible to the crew.

NASA is full of the sort of semi-disturbing paranoids that ensure the Defense Department has plans for invading Quebec: they practiced all sorts of contingency plans for the Apollo missions, including one where the LEM was supposed to be a lifeboat in case of a depressurization of the command module. If anyone could do it, it'd be NASA's backroom teams.
 
Well, if they hadn't spotted the damage in time, it would have blown eventually. The question is when.

I suppose if the No.2 O2 Tank did blow, there would only be one time when it could even be considered survivable. While they were transiting from the Earth to the Moon, while the LEM was still attached to it with its onboard batteries still at full charge.

Now if the damage was light enough - let's say, O2 Tank 1 is still in one piece and they have at least one healthy H2/O2 Fuel Cell that is working properly - they could use what was left in the damaged SM and the still healthy LEM to limp back home.

Even so, that would still constitute an automatic Mission Abort, on top of the odds still being against them.
On the other hand, if they are transiting from the Earth to the Moon, it means the LEM has to keep an oversized crew alive for longer. The LEM's not designed for that, I doubt it can do it.
 
On the other hand, if they are transiting from the Earth to the Moon, it means the LEM has to keep an oversized crew alive for longer. The LEM's not designed for that, I doubt it can do it.

90 Person-Hours if I'm not mistaken. In other words, just 30 for a crew of three using it. But this only applies when it is running normally. By cutting the power consumption right down to the minimum required, they could pull it off. Especially if they could use whatever might be left in the SM to augment it.
 
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