Apollo 13
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Apollo 13's long-shot mission to reach Earth
On this date 50 years ago, the jinxed Apollo 13 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The spacecraft’s lunar module never landed on the moon as intended, but considering everything that went wrong, it was arguably the most successful Apollo mission of all.
Follow Apollo 13 in real-time on its 50th anniversary
You can relive the near-deadly Moon mission as it happened.
‘Apollo 13’ returns to theaters for three days in April
Despite never landing on the moon, Apollo 13 is one of the most notable spaceflights in history. An explosion on the Apollo 13's service module put the lives of its three crew members in peril. And despite all odds, the astronauts were able to keep the ship functioning until safely touching down on Earth. 25 years later, Ron Howard directed a largely accurate film version of the near-fatal mission. To celebrate the mission's 50th anniversary, Apollo 13 will return to theaters on April 5th, 6th and 8th.
Pioneering astronaut Neil Armstrong dies at 82
It's a story that we hoped we'd never have to report. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on Earth's Moon, has died at the age of 82 after complications from heart surgery three weeks earlier. His greatest accomplishment very nearly speaks for itself -- along with help from fellow NASA astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, he changed the landscape of space exploration through a set of footprints. It's still important to stress his accomplishments both before and after the historic Apollo 11 flight, though. He was instrumental to the Gemini and X-series test programs in the years before Apollo, and followed his moonshot with roles in teaching aerospace engineering as well as investigating the Apollo 13 and Space Shuttle Challenger incidents. What more can we say? Although he only spent a very small portion of his life beyond Earth's atmosphere, he's still widely considered the greatest space hero in the US, if not the world, and inspired a whole generation of astronauts. We'll miss him. [Image credit: NASA Apollo Archive]
Spacelog provides fascinating searchable text transcripts for NASA missions
What you're looking at above is a scan of the physical NASA transcript of a famous moment of the Apollo 13 space mission. These transcripts make extremely fascinating reading, especially if (like us) you're really into minutiae. Now, for the first time ever, these transcripts are being... transcribed again, on the internet. Yes, if you wander over to Spacelog, you can now view full transcripts of the Apollo 13 and Mercury 6 space missions in searchable text which also links back to source images like the one pictured above. This is the kind of historical documentation and access that reminds us of why the internet is so, insanely awesome. Spacelog's site also says they're going to provide other mission transcripts in the future, including Gemini 7, Apollo 8 and Apollo 11.
HD-DVD titles show up on Blockbuster.com
You may not be able to rent them in the stores, but Blockbuster.com will rent you all (3) of the HD-DVDs you could ever want. Doom and Apollo 13 are listed as shipping tomorrow, as well as the delayed Million Dollar Baby, although you can't tell what is in and what isn't.If you're one of the ten thousand HD-DVD owners out there, at least you have some options. Once Blu-ray launches, we can probably expect quick online support there also, but it will be interesting to see who gets titles in brick & mortar stores first.[Via digg]
