The main thesis of this book is really not stated but rather it is really a given, to go to learn more about the moon.
Alan Shepard's ear infection had flared up, therefore his crew was bumped from the primary flight crew to a later mission, and instead Jim Lovell's crew was bumped up to the primary flight crew for the Apollo 13 mission. Two days before the scheduled Apollo 13 mission. Blood work came back from the flight surgeon and according to the surgeon, ken Mattingly das the measles and everyone had been exposed to it. All of the other astronauts had been exposed to it and have had it except for Ken. Naturally Ken was extremely devastated and shocked. So the man that replaced Ken as the navigator was a back-up crewman whose name was Jack Swagart, Jack was a little rusty with the controls since he had not practiced for the past two weeks. .
Soon after the launch of the Apollo 13 rocket, there was a big problem with the number 5 main engine cutoff, but mission control said there would be no big problem unless there was a loss of another engine. Soon thereafter, Jack was in charge of stirring the oxygen tanks and he did so, but something incredibly bad went wrong. That's when the famous term, "Houston, we have a problem", was derived from that very oxygen stir. Everything was in complete disarray and everyone was so confused. Of the 3 total oxygen tanks, two of then were completely down and not giving any kind of reading whatsoever. .
Some of the flight control crew just reasoned with themselves and just thought that there was a problem with the instruments reading. But Gene Crantz, the head of mission control, knew that it was a lot more than just a wrong instrument reading, he .
Thought it was really bad. Since the crew was running out of valuable time and oxygen, a man in flight control suggested that they close the reaction valves because it is the only way out.
