In the beginning of Apollo 13 it was announced that President Kennedy had just recently launched the space program. Everyone was gathering on July 20, 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong be the first man to step foot on the moon on the Apollo 11. John Lovell was an astronaught for NASA and was in line after Apollo 12 to land on the moon. As it turns out the crew that was ahead of Johns crew got canceled. So John along with Ken Mattigan and Fred Hayes were set to be the next people to land on the moon. The men had to go into months of preparation for the launch. Everyone in the world was so glad about the first mission and beating the Russians to the moon that no one really was paying attention to the next mission.
             April 11, 1970 was the launch date for Apollo 13. Everyone at NASA was nervous since it was the unlucky number 13. Two days prior to the launch of Apollo 13 the scientists informed John that Ken Mattigan was going to have measles. The director of NASA told Jim either the backup pilot Jack Swiger was going to take over or everyone was going to be replaced. John broke the news to Ken who of course didn't take it well. Jack was called up and was ecstatic about being chosen. Johns wife told him she didn't want to be at the launch. She hated the agony of the wait. However there was a day before the launch where everyone saw their families one last day. What was interesting was that they couldn't touch them for they didn't want them taking germs into space.
             The boys were ready to launch on April 11 and were suited up and getting into the rocket. The launch was successful and they got into space with no real hitch. However, when they got into space their number five engine failed. It was not a problem so they just continued on. John Lovell said that was our glitch for this mission. The hard part for Jack was to line up the ship with the lunar module. He however did it successfully. The boys then had a camer...