(8 Apr 2020) Apollo 13's astronauts say they never gave a thought to their inauspicious mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago.
Never mind that liftoff occurred at 13:13 Houston time on April 11, 1970, or that their oxygen tank ruptured two days later, on April 13.
Through it all, Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they're not superstitious. The number 13, in fact, is in both their email addresses.
The way mission commander Lovell sees it, he's incredibly lucky _ despite the torrent of 13s. Not only did he survive NASA's most harrowing moonshot, he's around to mark its golden anniversary.
A half-century later, Apollo 13 is still considered Mission Control's finest hour.
Like so many others, Haise regards it as NASA's most successful failure.
As the lunar module pilot, Haise would have become the sixth man to walk on the moon, following Lovell onto the dusty gray surface.
The oxygen tank explosion robbed them of the moon landing.
And now the coronavirus pandemic has robbed them of their anniversary celebrations.
Festivities are on indefinite hold at the Cosmosphere museum in Kansas, home to the Apollo 13 command module Odyssey, and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the mission began.
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