THINKER'S ALMANAC - April 13

How did the Apollo 13 Moon mission earn the oxymoronic moniker “successful failure”? 

Subject:  Successful Failures - Apollo 13

Event:  The Apollo 13 mission to the Moon is aborted, 1970

On this day in 1970, Apollo 13, NASA’s third lunar mission, experienced an oxygen tank malfunction that caused the mission to be aborted. The famous words from the 1987 movie Apollo 13 were “Houston we have a problem.” The actual quote was “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The Apollo 13 mission also gave us the oxymoron “successful failure,” meaning that although the ultimate mission of reaching the moon was a failure, the secondary mission of returning the astronauts to Earth safely was a success. 

                                                                Image by Anamul Haque from Pixabay 

Just as Ernest Shackleton experienced a sudden mission change in 1915 when his ship, the Endurance, became stuck in the ice (See THINKER’S ALMANAC - January 5), so too did NASA when an oxygen tank exploded on its Moon mission.  Shackleton never made it to Antarctica, and the Apollo 13 astronauts never made it to the Moon.  Instead, both groups of explorers were forced to redefine their goals and their missions, improvising new strategies to get home and to survive.

Two days after their launch and 200,000 miles from Earth, astronauts Lovell, Haise, and Swigert realized that their Moon mission was over when the oxygen tanks in their service module failed.  No longer able to survive in the command module, all three astronauts climbed into the lunar lander, which became their cramped lifeboat. 

With help from engineers on the ground, the astronauts were able to solve their first problem:  how to filter out deadly carbon dioxide in the lander.  They successfully jury-rigged filters from the command module so that they would work in the lunar lander. The second problem was how to get home.  Again with help from engineers on the ground, coupled with their long hours of experience as pilots, the astronauts were able to successfully calculate and execute just the right amount of engine burn, maneuvering the lunar module onto the correct trajectory for return to Earth.

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: How were the Apollo 13 mission and the Shackleton mission both “successful failures”? How would you explain the following analogy:  Shackleton : Antarctica :: Apollo 13 : Moon?

Challenge - Successful Failures:  What are other examples of history where failure has been used as a springboard for success?

Sources:  

1-National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  “Apollo 13” 8 July 2009. Nasa.gov