Image of the Day #11
(http://bruce.org.uk/images/ap13calcs.jpg)
Approximately two hours after the Oxygen Tank #2 exploded, the crew of Apollo 13 were deep into transferring mission guidance control from the Command Module to the spidery Lunar Module which had now become the crews liferaft in space.
Here are the calculations Commander Jim Lovell did manually at *GET 58.08:06hrs to calculate Apollo 13's attitude in space to ensure the data would not be lost during transfer to the LM's computer database.
Lovell asked the ground to check his calculations. You can imagine what state his mind was in. Needless to say, despite the drama going on, his calculus was spot on!
*GET = Ground Elapsed Time since take-off
Courtesy NASA