April 13th, 1970. 200,000 miles from Earth, three astronauts are approaching lunar orbit when they hear a noise. Deep in the spacecraft, a tiny wiring fault has caused an entire oxygen tank to explode. Now, it’s a race against time to save the lives of the crew of Apollo 13. It could have been the worst disaster in the history of manned space exploration. So how did things go so wrong? And who truly deserves the credit for the efforts to get the three men home again?

This is a Short History of Apollo 13.

Written by Duncan Barrett. Special thanks to Ben Feist of NASA, creator of the interactive multimedia website, ApolloinRealTime.org; and historian Rob Godwin, author of Apollo 13, The NASA Mission Reports.

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