Apollo 13 & Ken Mattingly

Ken Mattingly did not fly with Apollo 13
Write about his NASA career after this mission

In 1972, Ken got the chance to fly with Apollo 16 as a command module pilot. It was two years after Apollo 13 came back to Earth. Apollo 16 was the tenth manned space flight mission and he flew with John Young and Charles Duke. During the mission, Ken performed the extravehicular activity to collect the film and date packages from the module. He was the outside of module for about one hour for this activity. In total, he spent 126 hours on the lunar orbit. After his mission, he received the NASA distinguished service medal.

After he returned to Earth with Apollo 16, Ken involved in the space shuttle development project. In 1982, he got on the space shuttle named Columbia with Henry. It was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He and Henry did a lot of experiments during the flight. He got on another flight in 1985.

Hit total time in space is 21 days 4 hours and 34 minutes and retired from NASA in 1985. He worked at several private sectors and is now working at System Planning and Analysis in Virginia.

Apollo 13 and our dependence on computers

Jim Lovell has to fly the ship without the computer and the feels good about it. Do computers do too many things for us these days?

Yes, I think so. Recently, I found I have messy writing in Japanese. This is not only for happening in Japanese but for the foreign languages such as English and Chinese. And I also found that I forget how to write the English spell and Chinese characters in English and Chinese. I realized that this is because that we almost always use computer or smart phone to input the characters. When we input the word, it is automatically corrected or gives us the notice in case the spelling is wrong, then we can correct the word with just one click, or sometimes they tell us next word by predicting function. These are good and useful functions to improve our life but I felt a bit afraid that our ability has been degenerated in exchange of convenience. I think it is necessary to use our original ability of “Writing” to avoid any degeneracy so that we can keep writing clear and will not be in trouble in case we don’t have smart phone or computer every moment.

Apollo 13 - the Ken Mattingly story

Ken Mattingly did not fly with Apollo 13.  Write about his NASA career after this mission.

After the mission, Ken Mattingly flew on the Apollo 16 as Command Module Pilot from April 16 to 27, 1972.  Apollo 16 was assigned to collect samples from the lunar highlands near the crater Descartes.  Ken carried out an extravehicular activity to retrieve film and data packages from the science bay on the side of the service module.  Apollo 16 accomplished all major objectives although the mission was terminated one day early due to concern over several spacecraft malfunctions.

After the turn to Earth, Ken worked as head of astronaut office support to the STS (Shuttle Transportations System) program and technical assistant for flight test to the Manager of the Orbital Flight Test Program.  He flew on the STS-4 (the fourth and final orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia) as the pilot from June 27 to July 4, 1982 and completed 112 orbits of the Earth.  He saluted President Ronald Reagan after the landing.  Then he also flew on the STS-51-C (the first Space Shuttle Department of Defense) to deploy a modified Inertial Upper Stage vehicle from the Space Shuttle Discovery from January 24 to 27, 1985.

After those missions, he retired from NASA in 1985.  He logged 7,200 hours of flight time.  In his career at NASA, he received twelve awards like the NASA Distinguished Service Medal which was the highest award.

Apollo 13 - After reading

Taken by Apollo 8 crewmember
Bill Anders on December 24, 1968

Should we try to return the moon?

When a trip to the Moon will become more stable someday (after 100 years, 200 years), we should return to the Moon and I want to go there to see other planets and space.

Now, I think we should take more time or money to search the Mars in detail with following reasons.

Now, the Earth is having following problems and there is effective solution to solve those problems because each country has various situation in economical, culture etc and all of countries in the world can't take actions to solve those problems.

a) Air pollution
b) Water pollution
c) Ozone layer destruction
d) Global heating
e) Ecological change
f) Natural hazard

And I am very afraid that all things on the Earth like people, animal, forest, water can't stay on the Earth someday (after 200 years?).

I heard before that the Mars was silimar to the Earth and had water. In case of the Earth's crisis, we may need to move to Mars.

I think that it is be unlikely but not nothing, so I think that we should focus on the Mars investigation or try to find effective solution to save the Earth during the investigation of Mars.

Apollo 13 - after reading

Marilyn watched the drama of Apollo 13 unfold on TV...
Do you think she wants her husband to go into space again? Why/why not?

 

The crew of Apollo 13 on board the USS Iwo Jima following splashdown 

No, I don’t. She doesn’t want her husband to go into space never. I think she may be very worried sick. But if her husband says he wants to go again, I think she can’t say not to go. Because she knows how her husband wants to go to the moon. 

If he goes into space again, she always thinks that the same thing will happen such as Apollo 13. But if she says not to go and her husband decides he won’t go into space again, she has to continue to see her husband repress his feeling. I think it’s not good for each other.

It’s not decided the accident will happen. So if I were her, I want my husband to go there again, and I hope he comes home safely. Of course I am very worry and I always think about him. But I want him to make his dream come true.

Maybe Marilyn has heard the story about her husband’s dream from him many times.  

I think she needs time to sort out her feelings. Soon after he comes home, she doesn’t want him to go there again, but after a few months she can change her mind.

Finally, she will support him, I think.

APOLLO 13

(Q13)
You work for a newspaper. Write a story about Apollo 13. Why didn't astronauts walk on the Moon? How did they get home?

It was Saturday,April the 11th in 1970. Apollo 13 was launched to the Moon with 3 astronauts. But serious problem happened. Oxygen got out to the space. 3 astronauts and many staffs in the control center on the Earth thought, thought and thought. They had to change the plane that to walk on the Moon. They solved some accidents, and lastly, 3 astronauts could return back to the Earth.