Yearning For Safety

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32274, 17 April 1970, Page 1

Yearning For Safety

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright)

HOUSTON, April 16.

Anxious about their safety on a life-or-death descent of thousands of miles, short of sleep, and breathing stale air in a darkened cabin, the three Apollo 13 astronauts are living like steerage passengers aboard their crippled, SUS9Sm spacecraft

“Life is reasonably uncomfortable for them,” a space agency official commented drily yesterday. “They are living in one of the most complicated vehicles ever built by man, but the explosion that crippled it also killed the crew’s comfort.” “Upstairs” to the astronauts now is the command module, the Odyssey, and to

move “upstairs” from the lunar-lander, the Aquarius, they float weightlessly through a connecting tunnel. They must grope to find their way. All lights have been turned off, to save electricity. For most of the time they use a torch to see. Occasionally, as their craft revolves in space, sunlight flashes through a window. The command ship is no longer the heart of man’s third moon-landing attempt. Now it is only a bedroom; the astronauts try to sleep in it, but spend more time taking photographs out of the windows. The heartbeat of the combined craft now is the Aquarius. Lights shine here, gauges move, and it is here that voices from the earth are heard.

The Aquarius, designed for two men, is cramped and uncomfortable for three. There is no place to lie down to rest. But the trio gathered there for the final crucial rocket-firing this afternoon. “I’m the only commandmodule pilot who , ever witnessed a lunar-module engineburn sitting on the engine hatch,” Mr John Swigert told ground control during those critical three minutes.

The air in the spacecraft quickly grows stale, but there is little the astronauts can do. Oxygen is limited, and they cannot replace it freely as they did before the emergency. Instead, chemical canisters “scrub” the air of carhon dioxide and odours. When the canister is used up, it must be replaced: they have to rig additional canisters just to keep the air breathable. They, are yearning for

safety, for the end of their tremendous ordeal, for sleep, and for home.