Grumman's Life Raft
During the Apollo 13 mission, though, the Lunar Module was used as a literal life raft. Apollo 13 was launched on April 11, 1970. Two days after its launch, an oxygen tank exploded. That not only caused the mission to be aborted, but it also left the astronauts, Lovell, Swigert, and Haise, in a precarious position. The three astronauts needed to move into the Lunar Module, which was designed to handle two men. It only had enough oxygen for 45 hours but needed to support three men for 90 hours. The astronauts became inventors. They reworked the command modules' lithium hydroxide canisters to work in the LM to clear out the carbon dioxide from the air. Shortly before reaching Earth, the astronauts moved back into the command module and reentered the Earth's atmosphere safely. I remember being a student at Old Country Road Elementary School at the time. A television was set up in the auditorium/gym. We were brought in to watch Apollo 13 reenter the atmosphere and return home. I was so engrossed in watching the television that I never noticed that the students went back to class, and I sat there, eyes glued to the TV, watching and praying they would get home safely, which they did. The astronauts owed their lives to Grumman's Lunar Module.
The first LM was received by the Kennedy Space Center in June of 1967 and launched into space on January 22, 1968. The last of the Lunar Modules never went into space and is on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island.
