Why didn't Apollo 13's Oxygen Tank Explosion Blow the Crew's Capsule into
space damaging the heat shield as shown above?
Click here for an investigation and
interesting science experiment about air pressure.
Read about Apollo 13's Engine Challenge. Construct your own
Apollo 13 engine test as an educational activity for adults and children.
There is a popular Mark Twain book called A Connecticut Yankee
in King Arthur's Court. The fictional story’s appeal is a
“time machine” type journey back to the days of Yore.
A 20th Century citizen of the United States is planted in
the society of 500 A.D. England. The gimmick making the
book enjoyable is how the American Yankee used his modern
knowledge to advantage in King Arthur’s day. What is now
common technical and scientific knowledge appears mystical,
magical, and supernatural to the knights of the legendary Round Table.
The following activity is sort of an opposite approach.
What if the Wright Brothers were transported 7 decades in time
and thousands of miles above to that April week in 1970 aboard
the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft? How might they use knowledge
of their time to advantage? In lieu of Apollo 13’s powered down
computer and star sightings obscured by debris, how could they
establish the location of their spacecraft? The
challenge would be to use simple arithmetic and a process much
like Columbus’s dead reckoning navigation. The exercises
and discussions which follow deal with their dilemma.
SPACE EDUCATION PAGE
Read How the Apollo 13 Crew Made a
Square Peg Fit into a Round Hole and do the same.
Read About the First Soviet Man(ikin) in Space (March 1961)
CAN YOU FIND IT WITH A TELESCOPE?