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 By Ron DeSilva
On Saturday April 11th 1970 exactly at 13:13 CST Apollo 13 lifted off Cape Canaveral on its way to the moon. The crew consisted of Jim Lovell, the commander, Jack Swigert, command module pilot and Fred Haise, lunar module pilot. Approximately 8:30pm, a few minutes after Kennedy Space Center handed over to Houston this conversation between Apollo 13 and Houston was overheard,
Apollo: "We have company."
Houston: "Say again?"
Apollo: "I say we have company."
(Then a short period of silence)
Houston (emphatically): "You were told not to make transmissions such as that! Put it on the flight recorder and we'll discuss it when you get back!"
Long period of silence.
The first two day was routine until on the third exactly when they were 199,990 miles from earth Jack Swigert uttered "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here". Almost immediately Jim Lovell radioed Houston with "Houston, we've had a problem" contrary to the famous phrase "Houston, we have a problem". According to the official NASA explanation, as the space craft was on its way to the moon, the number two oxygen tank in the Service Module (SM) exploded when mission control requested the crew to perform a procedure called "cryo stir", in which the oxygen "slush" is stirred to prevent it from stratifying.
Damaged electrical wires powering the stirrer motor caught fire when power was applied. The fire caused a pressure increase above the tank's nominal 1,000 lbf/in2 (7 MPa), and the tank exploded. This explosion damaged other parts of the service module, including the number 1 oxygen tank. At first NASA speculated that Apollo 13 was struck by a meteorite thus causing the explosion. As with Apollo 11 and Apollo 12, Apollo 13 was also broadcasted live to the entire world until the explosion onboard. After the explosion NASA decided to blackout the live feed and any information out of NASA. The little information released to the media was censored by NASA prior to their release. This mission is best remembered for the near disaster that befell it and the crew's enduring limp home, however it should also be remembered for anomalous phenomena it photographed before the oxygen tank explosion. These pictures included the red, cigar shaped object shown above. Apollo 13 also photographed NASA catalog number 13-60-8609 , which appears to show an object over the lunar surface.
Apollo 13 also photographed two other UFO on the return journey. This second photograph shows two objects with the Moon in the background. The object to the right hand side lacks any definite form, however computer enhancement of the left-hand object shows it to be solid and not a reflection. NASA however has refused to comment on this photograph. This object has a cylindrical or cigar shape that will continue to be a feature of unknown objects observed both in space and above the Earth.
On April 10th, 1970, about eighteen hours prior to Apollo 13 liftoff, NORAD tracked a large cigar shaped object enter the United Stated air space from space. According to informed sources, the object measure more than two football fields and traveled faster than any man made object. It descended to about 150,000 feet just over Santa Fe, Texas and then headed towards Florida until the object just disappeared from their radar about 20 miles north of Daytona Beach, FL. Could it be the same cigar shaped object that the astronauts later photographed during the Apollo 13 mission?
Less than ten hours before lift-off, another UFO was spotted by couple of fishermen off the coast of Cape Canaveral. It was around five in the morning when two local fishermen spotted three disc shaped object just about three or four miles off the coast of Cape Canaveral. They watched the three UFOs traveled from the east in formation and headed towards the mainland. Although the sighting lasted for little less than three minutes, the two fishermen were able to describe the three UFOs in details.
During the Apollo 12 mission the crew was successful in setting up seismic instruments (seismometers) on the moon. When the Apollo 12 Lunar Module was purposely crashed into the surface of the moon, it created a force equivalent to one ton of TNT explosion. The shock waves built up to a peak in eight minutes and to the surprise of the scientist at NASA, "the Moon rang like a bell for nearly an hour". Scientist were surprised by the rapid build of in the peak and the prolonged reverberations. Nothing comparable happens when objects strike Earth. Thus many were forced with the conclusion that the moon might be hallow. To validate this theory that the moon might indeed be hallow, NASA needed a larger seismic explosion to generate an adequate energy wave to travel the entire diameter of the moon and back to the seismometers. According to NASA documents they needed to achieve an explosion equivalent to at least 30 ton of TNT. It was for this reason that NASA decided to use a small plutonium bomb for this purpose since this was the only available alternative they had to create such a large explosion for their experiment.
Everything that I have stated up to now can easily be verified by documents available to the public. It is here in the story that Dr. Vladimir Azhazha enters. Vladimir Azhazha is one of the leading UFOlogist in Russia in the 1990s. His reputation as UFO researcher is well known and respected throughout the world and he is also the president of USSR Academy of Science.
Vladimir Azhazha published a book in which he explain what really happened to Apollo 13. According to his book, UFOs used carefully directed pulse magnetic beam directed at the plutonium bomb to set of a small enough explosion onboard to cripple the command module. Azhazha surmised that the Aliens feared that a detonation of Plutonium bomb could seriously damage the underground bases on the moon. Thus the Aliens crippled the Apollo spacecraft to prevent this from happening. When I first read this account of the Apollo 13 incident I was very skeptical and refused to believe him until I met Dr. Vladmir Azhazha in Boston during a UFO conference that I attended. I was taken by his knowledge and sincerity of the story. Couple of years latter I decided to investigate this claim thoroughly. During my research I came across an interview conducted by Elaine Douglass, the host of UFOs Saturday Night that was aired on May 6th 1995 of former NASA employee Donna Tietze. Formerly of NASA, female slide technician, the recipient of numerous space awards including 1969 Apollo Achievement award from the National Aeronautics & Space Administration, 1973 Skylab award, a medallion for success on the Skylab-Suez Test project, numerous other awards for her skill as a technical Artist, honors, awards and a 1994 reccomendation by Texas Governor Ann Richards to the Advisory Committee of Psychology Associates.
Donna Tietze has spent most of her professional life involved in the Space Program as a technical illustrator. She drew lunar maps, landing slides, she worked in the photo lab, Precision Slide Lab, reducing art work to one inch by one inch drawings. She drew launch sites, landing sites and was employed as a sub-contractor to NASA for over 15 years. She worked on flight manuals for astronauts & has the wonderful ability to put words into images but uniquely, learn to do everything backwards, including mathematical computations, the writing of words, to put it simply, this woman has seen just about all the different kinds of images one could see that are used in Space Programs. As you can see she an excellent reputation and she has absolutely nothing to gain (and everything to loose) by concocting this story. Here is the part of the interview that caught my attention.
Elaine Douglass: Yes and I believe that Donna you related to me, you friend came to believe that the UFOs were instrumental in getting Apollo 13 that was, ah, our disable mission to the moon, was it 13?
Donna Tietze: Right, well he said that it shouldn't have come back, I mean, there was no, ah, they had help. And that's was all he would say.
Elaine Douglass: All he would say?
Donna Tietze: He said it was impossible for that craft to have gotten back home
Then to my surprise, I learned that there were other ex NASA employees who held this belief. Jerry Woodfill, NASA's Apollo 13 Alarm System Engineer wrote an article titled, What really happened to Apollo 13. In is he stated that
Despite considerable odds against Apollo 13 landing safely and accurately, the reentry and splashdown were among the most precise of the entire Apollo program!.
In his article I learned that during re-entry, Apollo 13 had "mysterious" drift that crew nor Houston could correct. On April 17th, 1970 around the time of splash down there was a massive hurricane brewing in the specific ocean close to the landing site. Yet ins spite of this and gale force winds, Apollo 13 splash landed precisely as planned. As stated by Jerry Woodfill, Apollo 13 landing was the most accurate splash down of all the Apollo, Mercury and Gemini missions. This comes as a big surprise since we know that due to the lack of fuel on board the Lunar Module (LM) the crew was unable to make too much course correction. In his article Jerry Woodfill attribute the safe return of the astronauts and this miracle to GOD but I wonder if there was someone else responsible for the miracle. Is it possible that after detonating the bomb onboard Apollo 13, these Aliens helped guide the spacecraft back to earth safely as Dr. Azhazha as stated in his book.
The above information wasn't sufficient enough for me to conclude what happened to cause the explosion onboard the Apollo 13. But the above information from different sources was what heightened by curiosity. The first task was to find the amount of fuel that the Lunar Module on Apollo 13 was carrying. With this data in hand and the number of times the LM thrusters were fired during the mission, I went to two of my best friends that went to college with at University of TX in Austin. I will refrain from stating their names since they wish to remain anonymous since they learned what the information was used for. One of them works for JPL and the other works for NASA as aeronautic engineers. With their help and my software background I was able to create a simple simulation program for the maneuvers the LM carried out during the Apollo 13 rescue mission. As I ran the simulation, I came to the conclusion that Apollo 13's Lunar Module, Aquarius just didn't have enough fuel to carry out the maneuvers needed for the rescue mission by NASA.
The model/simulation is based on the successful Apollo 11 mission. The only difference between the two missions was the small difference in the amount of fuel they carried, which is almost negligible. But the major difference is the maneuvers carried out during Apollo 13 rescue mission and the amount of fuel used in these of maneuvers. On the Apollo 13 Lunar module, Aquarius carried a total 18,434.5 lbm in fuel and oxidizer (in form of oxygen) decent stage. It was this amount of fuel that was available for rescue mission since the CSM fuel cells were disable after the explosion. LM thrusters were first fired for 34.23 seconds to maneuver the spacecraft into a free-return trajectory. As it looped around the moon, it used the moon gravitational force to slingshot the spacecraft on a return path towards earth. When the flight controller at NASA calculated that the minimum practical return time for Apollo 13 it was 133 hours.
Thus it was decided to speed up the return time by using the transearth injection. For this the LM thrusters were fired for 263.82 seconds. Guidance error during this procedure required the LM module thruster to be fire for another 14 seconds. 101.28 second of the decent thrusters was used in order to put t Apollo 13 into earth�s orbit. Then another 756 seconds of the LM decent thrusters were fired in order to de-orbit from earth. During re-entry, another 21.5 seconds of the decent stage was used in order refine the flight-path angle slightly. This meant that a total of 1190.83 seconds of the LM decent thrusters was used. Now during the Eagle's (Apollo 11 LM) moon landing the decent thruster was fired for a total of 786.39 seconds and used a total of 17,414 lbm (our of 18,184). Another word for each second the LM decent thrusters were fired, 22.144lbm was used. Using this rate of 22.144 lbm/s, we can calculate the total number of seconds Aquarius LM decent thrusters can be fired. We calculate (18,434.5 lbm divide by 2.144 lbm/s) that a maximum of 832.482 second worth of fuel was carried Aquarium LM decent stage.
If NASA only used the decent stage for the rescue mission as stated in their documents, this meant that they were short of 7,935.239 lb, of fuel for the stated maneuvers that NASA supposedly carried in order to rescue the crippled spacecraft. Unless NASA was mysteriously able to produce an extra 7,935.239 lbm of fuel, the Apollo 13 would have flown into space forever. This simply calculation and our simulation indicates that NASA just didn't have enough fuel on LM decent stage for the rescue mission. Yet we know for a fact that Apollo 13 did enter into orbit around earth, de-orbited and then splashed down in Pacific Ocean. How did NASA and the Apollo 13 crew accomplished this with only 18,434.5 lbm of fuel when the listed maneuvered require 26,344.0146 lbm of fuel. That is unless they were helped by GOD as Jerry Woodfill, Apollo 13 Warning System Engineer, stated in his article. To me GOD is only a concept in religion. Aliens are more realistic. So is it possible that the same Aliens that crippled the Apollo 13 in the first placed helped the crew get back to earth. It should be stated that the fuel in ascent stage was completely useless for these maneuver since the design and psi (pressure for square inch) was not the same as the decent stage.
Apollo 13 splashed down less than 1.9km from the intended target which was a more precise splash down than any other mission Apollo, Gemini or Mercury mission. Last leg of the Apollo 13 rescue mission was so pricised that even NASA was at lost for word. As Jerry Woodfill stated in his article,
"If I were to script the closing scene of "Apollo 13," I would show cigars being lit amidst jubilant cheering in Mission Control. Next, I would picture the smiling astronauts on the deck of the carrier Iwo Jima. Finally, a closing picture would be of those 14 school children singing the song the Pilgrim's brought to America..."Praise God from whom all blessings flow...Praise Him all creatures here below..."
I like to address something that many of my skeptics would be asking as they read this. Why didn't the Apollo 13 and NASA use the fuel onboard the CM if the amount of fuel on descent stage of the LM wasn't sufficient to carry out the maneuver needed for the rescue mission. After the explosion of one of their oxygen stank inside CSM, the NASA was little worried about the safety of the Apollo crew and jeopardizing their lives by attempting to use the remaining oxygen tank. They were concerned that any attempt to use the other oxygen tank would result in another explosion. Yet others have asked me why NASA didn't use the ascent stage of the LM. The ascent and descent was designed for completely two different processes. One use forward thrust and other reverse thruster. For this reason, the ascent stage of the LM was completely useless for the maneuvers carried out during the rescue mission.
During re-entry on April 13, the crew returned to the CM and jettisoned the LM into the pacific ocean northeast of New Zealand. Inside the LM SNAP-27 generator there was 5.5lb of Plutonium-238. Dr. Karl Grossman also states that the LM was also carrying an extra 8.3 lb of Plutonium which has not been made public but believe to have being jettisoned into the 3 1/2 mile deep Tonga Trench. NASA has continuously tested the water of this area for radiation leak. According to independent scientist no significant amount of radiation has being recorded in these waters since 1972 yet they fear that 13.8lb of radiation inside the LM might leak and create an international disaster.
In 2003 I wrote letter to Gerald D. Griffin, the mission director of Apollo 12, 15 and 17. In the letter I described precisely what had found. I gave detail description of the fuel usage with data and send him a copy of the Apollo 13 flight simulation according to NASA. I asked him to explain the discrepancy in the amount of fuel carried and the amount of fuel used. I wrote this letter in August 2003. So I waited till April of 2004 and wrote another letter to him asking for explanation as to why he never replied to my letter. A couple of months later, I received a letter from stating that he was not retired from NASA and any question should be directed at NASA. From my previous experience communicating with ex NASA employees I knew this was standard letter; and because of this I was able to anticipated his reply and had already (by December of 2003) written to NASA an identical letter. NASA has never replied to my letter as of my writing although I had written couple of more letters since then. I also sent an identical letter with my simulation to Apollo 11 mission director, M. George H. Hage and received the same run around. I then wrote Gene Kranz, Apollo 13 mission director. To my surprise he replied with this statement,
"We were all surprised when Apollo 13 splashed down in the pacific. No one in the room thought it was possible and knew it had to be a miracle and ..."
"we are still lost for word to describe the more daring rescue mission"
In the same letter I asked Kranz about claim made by Donna Tietze. To this he simply stated,
"I have never personally met or know Tietze so therefore I cannot comment on her allegations."
I expected a flat out denial of the claims made by Tietze but instead I was surprised by his reply.
typos?)
This is what he wrote about Chatelain when I asked him to verify or deny the cliams made in his book.
"I know Maurice Chatelain personally and his accomplishments. He was an integral part of the team and the success of the Apollo mission." Again it is a simple statement rather than answering my question.
It isn't difficult to read in between the lines. He seems to know more about Apollo 13 rescue mission more than he is willing to say. We would never know what NASA accomplished the impossible feat since many of the document related to Apollo 13 has being classified at top secret.
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Re: What Really Happened to Apollo 13 (Score: 1)
by Kira on Sunday, October 28, 2007 @ 23:36:38 CDT
(User Info | Send a Message) | I find it hard to think we never went to the moon due to the many accounts of moon bases AND bases on Mars. They may not all be ours, but some of them are.
Fantastic article! |
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Average Score: 4.06
Votes: 16
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