Nation: Apollo’s Return: Triumph Over Failure

“My lord Odysseus,” he replied, “spare me your praise of Death. Put me on earth again . . .”

—Homer

UNDER its cheerful orange-and-white parachutes, Odyssey came down gently in placid, warm, South Pacific waters. The ripples from that splash spread around the globe. For four days a fractured world inured to mass suffering and casual death had found common cause in the struggle to save three lives. The magic and mystery of space exploration, the realization that James Lovell, Fred Haise and John Swigert were not simply three Americans on a scientific mission but also humanity’s envoys to the future, had served to bind men and nations in a rare moment of unity.

Perhaps the largest audience in history watched the return, participating through TV’s intimacy in every moment of the final, fiery descent. Journey’s end was safe and all according to script, in sharp contrast to the crisis of mid-voyage, which had been full of unprecedented danger and breathtaking improvisation. The devastated service module, original source of the deadly hazard, peeled off properly. Aquarius, the lunar module that had served as savior instead of explorer, unzipped easily. The command unit Odyssey touched down within four miles of the U.S.S. Iwo Jima. Helicopter recovery ticked along as if automated. Soon Lovell, Haise and Swigert were on the carrier’s flight deck, hearing Rear Admiral Donald Davis say, “We’re glad you made it, boys.” The ship’s chaplain said a prayer of thanksgiving, and the three astronauts joined him. In Houston, Marilyn Lovell touched the universal mood when she said: “It was beautiful.”

James Lovell added his own benediction when the astronauts first set foot on land en route home. Welcomed by gaily-dressed Samoans on Pago-Pago, Lovell said: “We do not realize what we have on earth until we leave it.”

Exploding Tank. Yet the previous voyages had seemed so effortless, the voyagers so confident, the supporting apparatus of men and equipment so efficient, the goals so bold and growing ever bolder, that a degree of hubris had developed. It was not so much frail human flesh against the vast challenge of space as it was technicians remembering the sequence of switches to throw. The world could be forgiven a touch of ennui.

Apollo 13’s failure ended that. The exploding oxygen tank that could easily have cost the lives of Lovell, Haise and Swigert was a cruel but perhaps necessary reminder of the fallibility of man and his machines. The cause of the malfunction will have to be established by a painstaking inquiry. Meanwhile space exploration was humanized again, as it had been during the pioneer flights and on the night when Neil Armstrong made man’s first footprint in moon dust. No longer was it an issue of U.S. technocracy, or how many billions the space program costs, or what the funds buy. Rather it was the guts, wits and will of a handful of men matched against the enormousness of space.

Sophisticates. The contest was irresistible to the world. The total and instant access to bad as well as good news of U.S. space shots underscored the openness of American society. Hundreds of millions followed the suspsnse story on television, radio and in the press. Even sophisticates who have become ostentatiously blasé about space—if not downright hostile—succumbed. .”I watched the idiot box,” wrote Columnist Max Lerner, “as if, by sheer will, I could mesmerize the TV reporter into telling us that all was well in the best of all possible spaceships, on the best of all possible moon probes. I couldn’t and he didn’t.”

In office-building elevators, in restaurants, on the streets, the question was everywhere: “How are they doing?” A Chicago cab driver taking a fare to O’Hare Airport near the end of Apollo’s ordeal suddenly turned off the expressway and drove to the nearest tavern so that he could watch the return on TV. The passenger protested, but decided to watch also.

Any place with a television set became a magnet, even after the safe landing seemed likely. In Atlanta, a drive-in near Georgia Tech set up five television viewing rooms. “You can’t get in any of them,” said the manager.

Covered Wagons. People already disenchanted with the space program grumbled that no one was paying comparable attention to the many men who were in equal or greater peril of their lives in Viet Nam. Yet no amount of skepticism could dilute the week’s emotional response. For many, prayer was the natural recourse. Houses of worship all over the world conducted special services. “We share the universal trepidation,” said Pope Paul, “for the fate of these heroes.” In Jerusalem, Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall made special devotions that included a passage from Psalm 19: “Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” In India, more than 100,000 pilgrims attending a Jain religious festival offered special prayers.

Richard Nixon shared the week’s mood. While the astronauts were still in danger, he immersed himself in their plight, received frequent briefings, and visited the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland to get fresh information firsthand. The President discussed with Michael Collins, the former astronaut who is now Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, the inherent risks of challenging frontiers. Said Collins later: “He talked about the covered wagons going across to California. Those were brave people then and there were a lot of graves along the way. But they went ahead.”

Hamburg Calling. A major presidential television address on Viet Nam troop reductions was put off until this week. After splashdown, Nixon lighted up a victory cigar, then declared a national day of thanksgiving and prayer. At week’s end he jetted off to Houston to hand out medals to NASA ground personnel, then took Mrs. Haise, Mrs. Lovell and the parents of John Swigert for a rendezvous with the Apollo crew in Hawaii. Of the safe return, Nixon said: “There is no question in my mind that for me, personally, this is the most exciting, the most meaningful day I have ever experienced.”

Just as the first moon landing was a triumph for the world as well as for the U.S., so Apollo 13’s mortal danger was not merely an American travail. Thirteen nations, including the Soviet Union, offered ships or planes to help in the rescue operation; none were needed. In Vienna, Chancellor-designate Bruno Kreisky interrupted a major political conference. Said he: “We all should follow the fate of the astronauts.” Ordinary citizens were just as interested. In many countries they approached Americans with expressions of sympathy and concern. The U.S. embassy in London said there had been no such outpouring since John Kennedy’s assassination. A Hamburg man telephoned Houston to suggest that the astronauts be allowed a space walk “to check out what really happened.”

What Next? What really did happen—and what the effects of Apollo 13’s failure will be on the space program’s future—became Topic A after the splashdown. On the technical side, the answer will depend on whether the flaw that caused the explosion is easily correctable or not. The villain might turn out to be, as NASA Administrator Thomas Paine observed, a 25¢ plug. Or it might be a design fault that will be difficult to discover and both time-consuming and expsnsive to correct. The 1967 fire on the ground that killed three astronauts during a dry run led to extensive redesign of the command and service modules and delayed moon exploration for at least 18 months. Apollo 14 had been scheduled for October, but now the date is uncertain.

The space program, however, has other and deeper problems that may have been worsened by Apollo 13’s aborted mission. The Government’s economy drive has already caused financial reductions for NASA. Paine last week acknowledged that “an agency such as ours is completely dependent on public opinion and congressional support. The question then is whether, when the going gets tough, the support will continue.” The same doubt was on Lovell’s mind while he was still aloft. Said he: “I’m afraid that this is going to be the last moon mission for a long time.”

Sure enough, Apollo 13, which yielded little for the $380 million spent on it, encouraged new skepticism about space exploration and manned flights. Scientists Linus Pauling and Ralph Lapp, already critical of the costs and motivation of the entire program, renewed the argument that space probes would be better run entirely with instruments. Stewart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior, dismissed manned flights as “stunts.” NASA’s position always has been that a human intelligence is necessary to get maximum results from space exploration. If the space agency should be forced to reverse that stand—a highly unlikely prospect —then much of the equipment and many of the procedures developed over the past twelve years would have to be scrapped. Congressman Olin Teague, the Texas Democrat who heads the House Manned Space Flight Subcommittee, warned: “The enemies of the program will seize upon this to delay it, just as they did the last time there was an accident.”

Perhaps. Much depends on the vigor and candor with which the Government handles the investigation of what went wrong. Despite the disappointment over Apollo 13, the episode had its positive side. Snatching the astronauts from death was a major triumph, one that demonstrates the program’s strength and resilience, and the resourcefulness of the men—in deep space and on the ground—who overcame the disaster that struck Apollo 13.