Apollo Artifacts

Apollo 13 flown launch abort cue card

This cue card was from the personal collection of Fred W. Haise, Apollo 13 Lunar Module Pilot.

The information that Haise supplied about the card reads:
"This cue card was carried around the moon on the flight of Apollo 13 during April 11 to 17, 1971. This card was positioned on the instrument panel with Velcro during the launch to be used in the event of a Mode III abort. This abort mode became available in the period of launch just before achieving the Abort-to-Orbit capability. On the cards are blanks to be filled in for a manually executed SPS retrograde maneuver such as Time Of Ignition (TIG), Burn Time (BT), Pitch attitude, Ground Elapsed Time (GET) to reach 300k feet altitude, Pitch attitude reaching .05G, and the time for Drogue parachute deployment. The burn was to change velocity by 6999.9 feet per second to assure an Atlantic splashdown short of the African continent. We did not have to use this card but did have to deal with a much more complicated abort case on Apollo 13."

Apollo 13 flown couch material Lucite intended for Apollo 13 movie VIPs

The bottom of this fascinating artifact reads: "This is a segment of the actual backing restraint material removed from mission commander James A Lovell's spacecraft couch aboard the Apollo 13 command module 'Odyssey'. This artifact symbolizes one of the greatest human dramas to ever unfold in space during the near catastrophic mission of Apollo 13, April 11-17, 1970. Presented by the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center as a tribute to your participation in the development of Universal Studio's movie production of 'Apollo 13'."

The Apollo 13 command module is displayed at the Kansas Cosmophere. A small number of these lucite artifacts were sold to the public to raise money and even fewer were given away to the VIPs who worked on the Apollo 13 movie.

Apollo 13 launch viewing pass

Special guests who were invited to watch the launches of the Apollo program from a special viewing area were issued passes. These lucky few were entitled to be at a spot that was as close to the launch as one could safely get. I have a launch viewing pass from each Apollo mission in my collection.

With Apollo 13 on April 11, 1970, Saturn V launches became almost routine. Nobody who witnessed the liftoff that day could have anticipated the drama that would soon unfold.

Apollo 13 Post-Mission Crew Press Conference transcript

Apollo 13 was the US space program’s "finest hour" as what was on the surface a failure was actually a stunning success. Given little chance of coming home alive, thousands of people came together to develop untested solutions in order to bring the crew back safely.

This transcript of the post-mission crew press conference is signed by Apollo 13 commander James Lovell.