What is Apollo 13?

In the late 1960s, the United States "Apollo 1 1" and "Apollo 12" manned the moon twice, realizing the great desire of mankind to land on the moon. However, in the process of flying to the moon, mankind has not been smooth sailing, but also experienced painful sacrifices and great setbacks.

1970 On April 3, Houston time 13, the moon landing spacecraft "Apollo 13" was fired for the third manned flight to the moon. Apollo 13' s mission is a regular flight, and its purpose is to make a geological survey of the mountains on the moon.

Mathematics 13 looks unlucky, which is very obvious in western traditional culture. So, will Apollo 13 complete this "doom"?

There are three people on the moon landing spacecraft: commander Colonel James A. Love, lunar module pilot Fred W. Hayes and command module enhancer John L. Swigart. /kloc-in the early morning of October 6th, "Apollo 13" successfully flew in the orbit leading to the moon, 330,000 kilometers away from the earth, and the spacecraft had reached the point of no return. In other words, if the spacecraft loses control at this time, it will fly to the vast depths of space forever, and there is no possibility of returning. The whole flight was unremarkable, so the TV programs about astronauts' work did not attract the attention of American TV viewers.

However, just after Colonel Love said "Have a nice night on earth" on TV, a few minutes later, a sudden explosion shook the whole ship. The ground command center immediately fell into extreme panic.

At first, Colonel Lovel and Svegert thought it was Hayes' joke, because they heard the noise when Hayes operated the lunar module valve. However, from the monitoring screen, Hayes is also dumbfounded. Obviously, the explosion was an accident. They are in big trouble.

Svejet checked all kinds of instruments in the control cabin, and everything seemed to be working normally. But when Hayes came back from inspecting the lunar module, Svegert looked at the instrument in front of him again and found something was wrong. The hands of two oxygen barometers are dropping at an alarming rate. One fuel tank has completely stopped working, and the other fuel is about to run out. The three astronauts knew that the command module would be completed soon. The explosion just now not only destroyed two oxygen tanks, but also caused three main fuel tanks to lose their functions.

After hearing the report of the spacecraft, the ground control center decided to give up the moon landing plan immediately. But everyone knows that it is not easy to get three astronauts back to earth. The explosion caused the oxygen supply to drop sharply, and the power supply system failed, which seriously affected the power supply of the command module. This also means that there is no water to supply the fuel tank.

An hour and a half later, the ground control center informed them: "We calculated that the remaining power in the command module can only last about 15 minutes, so I hope you will enter the lunar module immediately and start charging." This is almost bad news. Hayes and Colonel Love immediately entered the lunar module. The command module was temporarily abandoned.

Astronauts and ground control center realized that the only hope to prevent spacecraft from flying into space without restrictions was to use the lunar module as a lifeboat. The power system and replenishment of the lunar module can make the faulty spacecraft fly around the moon orbit and fly to the narrow "space corridor", thus guiding it to return to Earth safely.

However, they still face a serious problem: the spacecraft will fly for almost four days, and if we don't make every effort to save electricity, oxygen and water, the supply of the lunar module will be completed in less than two days. Hundreds of technical experts and astronauts in the flight simulator of the ground control center are doing their best to solve the severe challenges faced by the spacecraft these days.

At 9: 30 in the morning, Colonel Love received an instruction from the ground control center: "The first rocket ignited and changed the course of the spacecraft." Apollo 13 complied. At 3: 30 am on June 7, 65438+, the spacecraft was successfully ignited again. At this point, the spacecraft disappeared in the northern part of the moon, and radio contact was interrupted. The ground control center is anxiously waiting for the restoration of radio contact.

When the spacecraft reappeared from the back of the moon, it was accurately positioned in the orbit to the earth. Everyone is relieved. However, an hour and a half later, the spacecraft encountered more serious problems: the air conditioning system was not working properly, and the content of toxic carbon dioxide gas was close to dangerous levels.

Technical experts and astronauts from the ground control center immediately set about solving this crisis. Finally, a method has been found, and astronauts can assemble an air purification device with ready-made instruments on the spacecraft. However, working in this cold and dim space environment is really too difficult and the process is quite slow. They connected the lithium hydroxide tank to the gas supply device with the spare hose on the moon landing suit, and finally installed the purification device.

As soon as this problem was solved, the ground control center found a greater danger-the spacecraft was further deviating from the orbit! If we continue to fly in the current orbit, "Apollo 13" will leave the earth and fall into the danger of losing space again.

The spaceship needs another critical rocket ignition. Colonel Lovel was so calm that he even managed to sleep for two hours before returning to the control module. 18 at 5: 3 am1,before the rocket was ignited and changed course, he humorously said to Houston, "I hope you guys who are monitoring the war in the rear will take the right measures." In fact, Colonel Love's worry is unnecessary. When the rocket ignited for the third time, the technical experts of NASA had developed a set of complicated control methods to help Apollo 13 return to the Earth's atmosphere on June 13, 2009. Apollo 14 astronauts in the flight simulator have repeatedly checked this method.

After Colonel Lovel ignited the rocket for the last 23 seconds, the faulty spacecraft was finally pushed into the right position for re-entry. It's already 1: 53 in the afternoon, 19. The damaged service module contains oxygen tanks and other supplies, and now it has been abandoned, revealing the heat insulation board, which is used to protect the spacecraft from being burned when flying in the atmosphere. It was then that the astronauts saw the extent of the damage for the first time. Colonel Love reported to the Houston control center: "The whole side is missing, from the bottom to the engine." The audience on the earth couldn't help but take a deep breath when they saw the scene of "Apollo 13" being disabled by the explosion on TV.

At 5: 44 pm, the life-saving lunar module was also abandoned. Colonel Love was the last person to leave the lunar module and enter the command module. After more than an hour, the command module broke into the earth's atmosphere. Suddenly, the control center lost contact with it for a few minutes. But it doesn't matter, "Apollo 13" is flying towards the safety of the earth. At 7: 07 pm, the command module splashed down smoothly in the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, less than 6 kilometers away from the rescue ship "Sulfur" waiting for it.

Despite the four-day ordeal and the threat of being abandoned in space, Colonel Love finally reported to the control center: "We are in good condition."

Although "Apollo 13" failed, its successful return shows that human beings are not powerless in space. With courage and wisdom, mankind will overcome all difficulties and obstacles. This also makes people understand that the ominous number 13 is powerless in the face of human courage and wisdom.

At the 20th anniversary of Apollo manned landing on the moon, US President George Bush confidently announced the trilogy of American expedition to Mars: the first step was to build the "Freedom" permanently manned space station in 1990s; The second step is to establish a lunar base for human habitation in 2 1 0 years before the century; The third step is to start manned flight to Mars from the lunar base in 201year, and land on this red planet from 20 16 to 2020.

Of the nine planets, it is natural that people choose Mars as the first object to visit. Because Mars is a close neighbor of the earth, it is most similar to the earth. Although we haven't found any signs of life on Mars so far, it has enough sunshine, ice water and atmosphere, and it is obviously the most suitable celestial body for human habitation in the solar system.

Scientists have spent a whole generation investigating the secrets of this red planet, and the human and material resources invested are still escalating. In the past 20 years, all space agencies in the United States, Russia, Japan and Europe have been making unremitting efforts and competing to become the first country to land on Mars.

In the past 20 years, scientists all over the world have also accelerated the pace of exploration and research on Mars.

1976, the American Viking successfully landed on the side of Mars, and the era of in-depth exploration of planets began.

On July 20th, "Pirate 1" landed on the west slope of the Kexilishe Basin, where the terrain was undulating and rocks of different sizes were scattered. Viking 2 landed near the edge of the Arctic polar cap, about 4000 miles away from/kloc-0.

The main purpose of the planned Viking probe is to explore whether there is life on the surface of Mars, so a series of instruments for exploring life are installed in the lander. First of all, two TV cameras can shoot high-resolution and low-resolution images in stereoscopic, color, black and infrared modes to observe macro life forms or biological movement phenomena.

The lander is equipped with a mass spectrometer, which can directly sample from the air for sensitive analysis. The analysis results show that the Martian atmosphere is mainly composed of carbon dioxide, and oxygen only accounts for 0.3% ~ 0.4%. There are also three biological laboratories in the lander, which can analyze soil in three different ways. On July 28, the sampling arm of the lander collected the first batch of soil samples from the surface of Mars, and then sent them to the biological instrument for three experiments to observe whether there were primitive life forms of microorganisms or organic substances in the Martian soil.

The result was disappointing. There is no sign of any organic molecules in the first sample. Of course, this non-existence does not rule out the possibility of life on Mars, but only increases the difficulty of analysis. This at least makes it possible for those institutions that have witnessed "Martians" to become charlatans and fall into a rather embarrassing situation.

In order to expand the exploration area, NASA recently developed a Mars exploration program called Purple Bird. The so-called "Purple Bird Project" is to send four unmanned spacecraft to the surface of Mars. The only difference between this spacecraft and the Viking lander is that it is equipped with tracked wheels, looks like a large mobile office, and is equipped with nuclear-powered batteries at a speed of 3-4 kilometers per day. In a Mars year (about two Earth years), traveling thousands of miles can cover tens of thousands of times more distance than Viking.

The scientists who carried out this plan said with confidence: Through the "Purple Bird" plan, Mars will expose its secrets to the people of the earth naked like the moon. They believe that on Mars, it is likely to find lower organisms similar to the Earth or similar, or "Mars-like" lower organisms completely different from the Earth. If we are lucky, we may even find relics or remains of higher organisms.

The American "Mars Observer" is the pioneer of this plan. The $980 million spacecraft began to conduct an unprecedented detailed survey of the planet at a speed of 1 18 minutes per lap, which lasted for 2-6 years.

Water is of great significance for understanding the development of Mars, because as long as there is water, it means that there may have been life forms. M carr, a cosmologist of the American Mars Observation Team, said: "We have found many water erosion phenomena." In the southern hemisphere of Mars, which has a history of 3 billion years, some photos of bifurcated rivers have been taken, which are very similar to the dry riverbed on the earth. Carl said: "It is almost certain that when these rivers are formed, the climate on Mars will be warmer and the atmospheric density will be much higher." Some scientists speculate that there may have been oceans on Mars.

In addition to the smaller bifurcated rivers, there are some signs that floods have occurred in many areas of Mars. Carl said that these beast-like floods seem to have washed out a huge valley 90 miles wide in two or three weeks.

These floods seem to have occurred from time to time in the history of Mars for unknown reasons. However, Karl speculated that the water may be confined under the frozen crust because of great pressure. Once cracks appear or it is hit by a huge meteorite, the water will gush out under high pressure.

If there used to be running water on Mars, where are they now? Some scientists estimate that water may have been blown off the planet, but most scientists, such as Carl, think that it is still on the planet, confined to the surface of the ice or clay layer. One of the tasks of "Observer" and its follow-up flight is to find water to reproduce the historical features of Mars.

Although people may dream of visiting or even living on Mars one day, it is a forbidden area for human beings by the standards of the earth. In summer, the temperature in the equatorial region can reach a satisfactory 68 degrees Fahrenheit at noon, but because the carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars is very thin, the temperature will drop by more than 200 degrees at night. At the poles of Mars, the average temperature in winter is about minus 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers hope that through the "Mars Observer" and future flight plans, they can better understand the harsh climate of Mars, and may even master the method of forecasting its weather.

Is it harder to land on Mars than on the moon? Of course, and it is not a little difficult, but much more difficult. The average distance between the moon and us is only 380,000 kilometers, but the average distance between Mars and us is 22.8 billion kilometers, and the nearest time is more than 55 million to 654.38 billion kilometers. The gravity on Mars is almost three times that on the moon, and the spacecraft taking off from Mars must be much more powerful than the spacecraft taking off from the moon. The manned spacecraft flying to Mars must weigh hundreds of thousands of tons, and a flight will take 1.5 ~ 3 years. Therefore, it is necessary to reserve much more food, air and water for the spacecraft crew than to explore the moon. If you want to send such a monster into space, you must use the space shuttle to divide the prefabricated parts on the ground into many batches and send them to the space station, where they will be assembled into spacecraft, and then start the rocket and send it to Mars or the moon.

This is only a small part of many difficulties. As for establishing a base on Mars, building an artificial "biosphere", developing Mars travel business, and transforming the atmosphere, soil and climate of Mars, it will probably take several generations or even centuries of efforts to realize Mars immigration and let human beings live freely on another planet.

It is estimated that it will cost about $500 billion to complete the three mission to mars proposed by President Bush, which is a heavy burden for any country. However, if the world continues to advance along the track of peace and development and carries out extensive international cooperation, the pace of mankind's March to Mars will be much faster and the prospects will become more optimistic.