In April 1970, the crew of Apollo 13 navigated home by holding the spacecraft against the terminator of the Earth, the line where day met night on the planet they were trying to reach, timing a fourteen-second engine burn with a wristwatch because their g

In April 1970, the crew of Apollo 13 navigated home by holding the spacecraft against the terminator of the Earth, the line where day met night on the planet they were trying to reach, timing a fourteen-second engine burn with a wristwatch because their g

On the afternoon of April 15, 1970, somewhere between the Moon and the Earth, three men were sitting inside a spacecraft they were not supposed to be living in, watching their breath fog in front of them, and looking through a small triangular window at a tiny crescent of blue and white. The cabin temperature had dropped to near freezing. The guidance computer was off. The navigation platform that normally told the spacecraft which way it was po…