[crazygringo]

We also had the Challenger disaster, which killed seven. And two astronauts died in a flash fire in 1967. Columbia too, another seven.

This is not the first time something has not gone according to plan. Thankfully nobody died. Let's not look at the past through rose-colored glasses, and assume that things have gotten worse. Spaceflight has been full of mistakes from the start.

[foobarbecue]

Yep. And Apollo 11 was extremely close to being a crash.

[chinathrow]

13, not 11.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13

[skissane]

No, Apollo 11:

> During the 12.6-minute-long powered descent, there were a total of five unexpected computer alarms. These alarms all indicated that Eagle’s computer system was overloaded, but in each case, Mission Control concluded that it was safe to continue the landing. The last of these alarms occurred less than three minutes before landing, when the crew was less than 500 meters above the surface. Because of the navigation error, the computer was guiding the spacecraft towards an unsafe touchdown point in the rugged, boulder-filled ejecta field surrounding West Crater. Armstrong took manual control and flew to a safe landing spot beyond the crater. At 3:17 PM CDT, he announced their safe landing, “Houston, Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed.” At the time of landing, Mission Control thought that the spacecraft had just 17 seconds of fuel left in the descent stage. However, post mission analysis showed that sloshing in the fuel tank during Armstrong’s search for a safe landing site caused the fuel gauge to give an inaccurate reading. Eagle actually had about 45 seconds of fuel left when it touched down.

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11

Apollo 13 had some very serious life-threatening problems, but almost crashing into the Moon was not one of them.

[skykooler]

Apollo 11 was close to running out of fuel during landing, as it turned out the planned landing site was full of large boulders which couldn't be seen until the astronauts were actually there.

[foobarbecue]

13 is also a good example of a close call!

[nmwnmw]

Three astronauts died in 1967: Gus Grissom, Edward White II, Roger Chaffee.

[foobarbecue]

Also, I just learned about this: https://youtu.be/qiJMdfj9NmI?si=gWawucu2U3WwIEbH