Astronauts Alan Bean and
Ted Freeman in 1963.
ges
ce Ima
Credit: NASA via Retro Spa
over Florida. John Aaron, a quick thinking 24-year-old
engineer recalled a little used switch in the capsule. His
recommendation to “switch SCE to AUX” restored power
to the mission but astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, Jr.,
Richard Gordon, Jr. and Alan Bean were still in low earth
orbit without a functional navigation system. They were
able to reset the guidance system by sighting key stars
allowing the mission to continue.
An explosion in an oxygen tank crippled power
generation aboard Apollo 13 en-route to for a Moon
landing. The capsule, service module and lunar lander
were left with limited power forcing navigation systems to
be switched off.
the explosion further complicated things making spotting
38
38
Group shot of astronauts who trained at Morehead during 1966.
Credit: NASA via Retro Space Images
module pilot John Swigert to locate stars Altair and Vega
hours before a safe reentry.
Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell even passed on some
of what he learned at Morehead 25 years later to actor
Tom Hanks. Hanks visited Lovell at his Horseshoe Bay, Texas
home to prepare for the Apollo 13 movie. Lovell took him
at Morehead. “Antares and Nunki, the two stars we saw
Donald K. Slayton was the last astronaut to train at
Morehead in 1975 for the Apollo-Soyuz mission. The
program ended as NASA moved on to the Space Shuttle
and its more reliable guidance computers.
You can visit The Morehead Planetarium and Science
Center on the campus of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and learn about the same stars under the
same dome as 62 astronauts. Or visit the center’s website
at www.moreheadplanetarium.org.
www.RocketSTEM .org