Apollo 13 mystery

[JBaker45]

I have been practicing the Apollo missions with the free Orbiter Space Flight simulator.

One thing that I observed is that after the correct Earth reentry angle for the capsule had been established, the service module was ejected and then it (the SM) was pre-programmed to fire thruster so that it would not follow the capsule down. This could have been bad because pieces of the burning SM could have impacted the capsule.

What is curious in the Apollo 13 mission is that they had to use the lunar module to effect the correct reentry path alignment, and then undocked from the LM. But the LM had no facility to alter it's own trajectory after this separation. It seem to me that the LM should have followed the capsule down and burned up during reentry, but I have no recollection of any news coverage of this.

Perhaps this was due to everyones attention being focused on the hapless crew. Still, I have done a little googling and nothing comes up on this small detail.

Do any of you have any information of this?

Thanks,
John

[JBaker45]

Follow up..

I did find some google links that suggest that both the lunar module and the damaged service module did in fact burn up in Earth reentery, but when I clicked on the links they were no longer functional :-(

[JBaker45]

Some follow up thought from my conversation with Brachinus :


Don't be too hard on NASA. Even the best-made cinematic productions have continuity errors (http://www.archivum.info/sci.physics/2006-08/msg05425.html). ;)
Well the thing that stuck me as I recreated the Apollo 13 reentry in the simulator was.. what about all that stuff following along behind me!

As it happened both the SM and the LM had slowly drifted away anyway, and by the time my capsule hit the atmosphere and began aireo-breaking I could no longer see any sign of them.

Could have made a spectacular addition to the movie though. You know.. Seeing pieces of burring metal from the wreckage shooting closely past them - Lol :)

It just goes to show us that even up to the very end, that crew received grace :)

[TigerBunny]

Wow...never even thought of that John. Cool and scary at the same time. :bigtup:

[Tallen]

Go to the NASA web site, and ask. I am sure you will get an answer from someone there.

http://www.nasa.gov/about/contact/ask_nasa_form.html

It takes about 2 weeks for an answer. :sparkle: