The most famous carbon dioxide absorber

Summary

Unless you are an anaesthetist, you probably wouldn’t know what a carbon dioxide absorber is (red arrow below). However, for a brief period in the year 1970, carbon dioxide absorbers were what everyone was talking about. This is the story of Apollo 13 which blasted off in 1970 towards the Moon. However, things did not go according to plan and an explosion in the spacecraft left three astronauts stranded 200,000 miles from home. Suddenly this story became headline news. The whole world got to know how the astronaut’s survival depended on whether they could make a carbon dioxide absorber using the limited materials available in their spacecraft. On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of his spacecraft and became the first human to walk on the Moon. The first words spoken by him on the Moon that day are still remembered. The first lunar landing was part of a series of space missions of the Apollo Space program. On April 11, 1970, it was the turn of Apollo 13 to lift off. This was going to be the third team to land on the Moon. The three astronauts (Lovell, Swigert, and Haise) for this mission were sitting on a massive rocket that would take them into outer space. The rocket (Saturn V), shown below, was about 110 meters tall (360 feet), had a diameter of about 10 meters (33 feet) and weighed about 3,000,000 kilograms (6,500,000 pounds). To appreciate the size of this mammoth rocket, compare its height with the man standing near it (tip of the red arrow). If you are superstitious and believe that the number 13 is not lucky, then you will be forgiven for thinking that the launch time was rather “unlucky”. Apollo 13 launched at 13:13 ( North American Central Time Zone ). The image shows the gigantic rocket launching into space. Within one minute of lift-off, the rocket was travelling at the speed of sound. The rocket was built of various sections and as it went up into space, to avoid carrying unnecessary weight, it was designed to discard sections of itse...