The three astronauts, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, were having a wonderful time watching planet earth become a sun-drenched white dot against the canopy of outer space, while the bright white moon was larger than they had ever seen it.  Then, without warning, it happened.

Lovell heard a small, but distinct, bang.  Swigert felt an almost imperceptible shudder; then the master alarm began sounding in their ear phones.  The pulse rate of all three astronauts shot up from 70 to 130. 

What they did not know, but they were about to discover, was that the spacecraft had suffered a catastrophic accident: an oxygen tank had exploded in the service module located behind the command module, and one entire side of the spacecraft had been blown away.  Two or three fuel cells were destroy…