Richard Lawrence - The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster

“Do it in four minutes?” Swigert asked.

“Seems like a nice round figure,” Lovell answered.

“Houston,” Swigert announced. “We’ll punch off at 141 plus 30.”

Outside the cockpit’s five windows, the astronauts could see nothing of Aqarius but its reflective silver roof plates, just a few feet away from the glass of their portholes. Three and a half minutes elapsed.

“Thirty seconds to LEM jettison,” Swigert said.

“Ten seconds.”

“Five.”

Swigert reached up to the instrument panel, ripped away his “NO” note, and balled it up in his palm.

“Four, three, two, one, zero.”

The command module pilot flipped the toggle switch and all three crewmen heard a dull, almost comical pop. In their windows, the silver roof of the lunar lander began to recede. As it did, its docking tunnel became visible, then its high-gain antenna, then the array of other antennas that bristled from its top like metal weed. Slowly, the unbound Aquarius began a graceful forward somersault.

Lovell stared as the face of the ship – its windows, its attitude-control quads – rolled into view. He could see the forward hatch from which he and Haise would have emerged after settling down in the dust of Fra Mauro. He could see the ledge on which he would have stood while opening his equipment bay before climbing down to the lunar surface. He could see the reflective, almost taunting, nine-rung ladder he would have used to make that final descent. The LEM rolled some more and was now upside down, its four splayed legs pointing up to the stars, the crinkly gold skin of its descent stage shining back at Odyssey.

“Houston, LEM jettison complete,” Swigert announced.

“OK, copy that,” Kerwin said softly. “Farewell, Aquarius, and we thank you.”

Finally, they needed to check their re-entry angle against the moonset attitude.

“Got anything, Jack?” Lovell asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“Now?”

“Negative.”

“Now? Just three seconds left.”

“Not yet,” Swigert answered. Then, at precisely the instant the FIDO in Houston had predicted, the moon dropped a fraction of a degree more and a tiny black nick appeared in its lower edge. Swigert turned to Lovell with a giant grin.

“Moonset,” he said, and clicked on the air. “Houston, attitude checked out OK.”

“Good deal,” said Joe Kerwin.

From the center seat, Jim Lovell turned to look at the men on either side of him and smiled. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we’re about to reenter. I suggest you get ready for a ride.”

Unconsciously, the commander touched his shoulder belts and lap belts, tightening them slightly. Unconsciously, Swigert and Haise copied him.

“Joe, how far out do you show us now?” Swigert asked his Capcom.

“You’re moving at 25,000 miles per hour, and on our plot map board, the ship is so close to Earth we can’t hardly tell you’re out there at all.”

“I know all of us here want to thank all you guys for the very fine job you did,” Swigert said.

“That’s affirm, Joe,” Lovell agreed.

“I’ll tell you,” Kerwin said, “we all had a good time doing it.”

In the spacecraft, the crew fell silent, and on the ground in Houston, a similar stillness fell over the control room. In four minutes, the leading edge of the command module would bite into the upper layer of the atmosphere, and as the accelerating ship encountered the thickening air, friction would begin to build, generating temperatures of 5,000 degrees or more across the face of the heat shield. If the energy generated by this infernal descent were converted to electricity, it would equal 86,000 kilowatt-hours, enough to light up Los Angeles for a minute and a half. If it were converted to kinetic energy, it could lift every man, woman and child in the United States ten inches off the ground. Aboard the spacecraft, however, the heat would have just one effect as temperatures rose, a dense ionisation cloud would surround the ship, reducing communications to a hash of static lasting about four minutes. If radio contact was restored at the end of this time, the controllers on the ground would know that the heat shield was intact and the spacecraft had survived; if it wasn’t, they would know that the crew had been consumed by the flames. In the flight director’s station, Gene Kranz stood, lit a cigarette, and clicked on to his controllers’ loop.

“Let’s go around the horn once more before reentry,” he announced “EECOM, you go?”

“Go, Flight,” Aaron answered.

“RETRO?”

“Go.”

“Guidance?”

“Go.”

“GNC?”

“Go, Flight.”

“Capcom?”

“Go.”

“INCO?”

“Go.”

“FAO?”

“We’re go, Flight.”

“Capcom, you can tell the crew they’re go for reentry.”

Kerwin said, “Odyssey, Houston. We just had one last time around the room, and everyone says you’re looking great. We’ll have loss of signal in about a minute. Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” Swigert said.

In the sixty seconds that followed, Jack Swigert fixed his eyes out the left-hand window of the spacecraft, Fred Haise fixed his out the right, and Jim Lovell peered through the center. Outside, a faint, faint shimmer of pink became visible, and as it did, Lovell could feel an equally faint ghost of gravity beginning to appear. The pink outside gave way to an orange, and the suggestion of gravity gave way to a full G. Slowly the orange turned to red – a red filled with tiny, fiery flakes from the heat shield – and the G forces climbed to two, three, five, and peaked briefly at a suffocating six. In Lovell’s headset, there was only static.

In Mission Control, the same steady electronic hiss also streamed into the ears of the men at the console. When it did, all conversation on the flight controllers’ loop, the backroom loops, and in the auditorium itself stopped. At the front of the room, the digital mission clock read 142 hours, 38 minutes. When it reached 142 hours, 42 minutes, Joe Kerwin would hail the ship. As the first two minutes went by, there was almost no motion in either the main room or the viewing gallery. As the third minute elapsed, several of the controllers shifted uneasily in their seats. When the fourth minute ticked away, a number of men in the control room craned their necks, casting glances toward Kranz.

“All right, Capcom,” the flight director said, grinding out the cigarette he had lit four minutes ago. “Advise the crew we’re standing by.”

“Odyssey, Houston standing by, over,” Kerwin called.

Nothing but static came back from the spacecraft. Fifteen seconds elapsed.

“Try again,” Kranz instructed.

“Odyssey, Houston standing by, over.” Fifteen more seconds.

“Odyssey, Houston standing by, over.” Thirty more seconds.

The men at the consoles stared fixedly at their screens. The guests in the VIP gallery looked at one another. Three more seconds ticked slowly by with nothing but noise on the communications loop, and then, in the controllers’ headsets, there was a change in the frequency of the static from the ship. Nothing more than a flutter, really, but a definitely noticeable one. Immediately afterward, an unmistakable voice appeared.

“OK, Joe,” Jack Swigert called.

Joe Kerwin closed his eyes and drew a long breath, Gene Kranz pumped a fist in the air, the people in the VIP gallery embraced and applauded.

“OK,” Kerwin answered without ceremony, “we read you, Jack.”

Up in the no longer incommunicado spacecraft the astronauts were enjoying a smooth ride. As the ion storm surrounding their ship subsided, the steadily thickening layers of atmosphere had slowed their 25,000 mile-per-hour plunge to a comparatively gentle 300-mile-per-hour free fall. Outside the windows, the angry red had given way to a paler orange, then a pastel pink, and finally a familiar blue. During the long minutes of the blackout, the ship had crossed beyond the nighttime side of the Earth and back into the day. Lovell looked at his G meter: it read 1.0. He looked at his altimeter: it read 35,000 feet.