Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 47

24 The Arizona Republic Phoenix, Sat, April 18,1970 Controllers at Mission Control relax after Apollo 13 crew members are safely aboard carrier Iwo Jima Associated PrMs Everything fell into place in the last few minutes C.A«««J i Washington Post Service WASHINGTON Somewhere, there must be someone who doesn't know the news, but you couldn't find him yesterday. The last act of the astronauts was played out before one of history's greatest audiences. Whether they agreed with the man in the downtown 1 Washington restaurant who said "this is a bigger thrill than walking on the moon" only they could say. But across America and around the world hundreds of millions of them were witnesses to the tensest denouement of the space age. In the end, everything fell into place.

Television was never finer, the reception was perfect, the storm that threatened the landing area never materialized, and at every step the men and their crippled machine functioned flawlessly. The hatch closed when it should, Aquarius was jetti- soned with split-second timing and a memorable phrase, "Farewell, Aquarius and we thank you." The heat shield did its job, the chutes opened as planned. Then the eye of the camera stabbed forward and caught the sight for which the world was waiting: The Odyssey, fluttering down onto a placid Pacific dawn, its descent braked by three huge para- hutes. From countless gatherings in communities large and small, there were cheers and occasional tears. In Manhattan, ticker tape and confetti were thrown from the windows.

In Los Angeles, sirens sounded. In Washington, the bells at the National Cathedral rang for 10 minutes. In Paris, a press conference was interrupted for a bulletin that brought spontaneous applause. Yet for all the tension and anxious waiting, the end of man's most perilous space flight was not marked by an emotional response. It was more a day for watching and meditation.

When it was over, there was an inevitable letdown. Some reacted with typical American understatement. "I've arrived at airports and, like, there's no one there to greet me," said a waitress, plaintively, in a Capitol Hill restaurant. She wasn't being unfeeling, for she had watched as intently as anyone during the descent. But it was over, and first things first.

The restaurant was as good a mirror as any. Secretaries and Capitol Hill assistants crowded in to stand and watch the closing hour. You could hardly get in the door. Everyone kept his eye on the camera. The conversation was subdued.

During the blackout period when Apollo 13 was out of voice contact with the earth, someone said, "You know, I was thinking of what John Glenn said he was thinking when he came down. 'Here I am riding on something built by the lowest The camera switched from the Pacific recovery area to the huge crowd in New York's Grand Central Station. They were as quiet in New York, as they were in Washington. Then it flashed to another scene, the Mission Control Center in Houston. More silence.

In Mission Control, a larger viewing screen could be seen showing a color photograph of the helicopters circling over the waters near Pago Pago. "There it is, there it is," one man near the front shouts. In the back, an old lady stands on her toes and murmurs, "It's wonderful, it's just wonderful." Moments later, splashdown. Cheers. One woman raises her hand and gives a thumbs-up gesture.

It's the greatest news I've heard since they landed on the moon," says a secretary. And a tourist from Kansas Astronauts exhausted after ordeal in space City says, "I just thank God they're safe. I've been praying for them all along. I knew they'd make it." I.99n parks and on buses, others kept track of the climactic minutes by listening to transistor radios. Seated alone on a park bench in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, was Mrs.

Doris Artist of the State Department's passport office. "I think marvelous," she said, after looking up from her portable radio. "I was sitting on pins and needles hoping they'd make it." As has been the case ever since Apollo 13 first ran into critical problems Monday night, the spacemen's plight transcended national boundaries and rivalries. The Soviet government banned all radio transmission on the frequencies used in bringing Apollo 13 back to earth and Russian ships stood by in the Pacific ready to help. Similar gestures and offers of aid came from the governments of Britain, France, West Germany, Czechoslovakia and Italy.

Nixon going to Hawaii to decorate spacemen Los Angeles Times Service WASHINGTON President Nixon celebrated the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts yesterday by lighting up a big green cigar and terming the recovery "the most exciting, the most meaningful day that I have ever experienced." Almost immediately, he made up his mind to fly 5,000 miles today from Washington to Honolulu to present to the three astronauts the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, for their feat. Enroute he will stop at Misson Control in Houston to present the same award to the ground controllers who shephereded by remote control the crippled Odyssey-Aquarius spaceship through its six-day earth-moon-earth loop. Before announcing the Hawaii flight, the President proclaimed tomorrow a national day of prayer and thanksgiving for the astronauts' safe return. Following the ceremony in Honolulu, the President will fly back to San Clemente, where, from his Western White House office he will deliver a progress report to the nation on the Vietnam war Monday evening. He is expected to announce further troop withdrawals at that time.

But recovery day was not one on which to worry about such earthly problems as the Vietnam war. The President stuck close to a television set and the Apollo voyage until the three astronauts were safely aboard the Iwo Jima. With two earlier Apollo astronauts William Anders, who made the Apollo' 8 flight, and Michael Collins, who flew on the first moon landing mission last summer briefing him personally, the President watched the climax of the flight on a colored television set in the office of an aide. When the three big orange parachutes, supporting the command module like a giant pendulum, ap- peared on the screen, Nixon clapped gleefully. Earlier, Anders and Collins had briefed him on the events that would take place in the mission.

He also received reports on service module separation and lunar module separation in his oval office. He went to the television set to follow the re-entry and recovery. Then he met newsmen tosay: "I thought the most exciting day of my life was the day I was elected President of the United States. I thought perhaps next to that was the day ha Apollo 11 completed! its flight and I met it when it came down to sea in th ePacific. But there is no question in my mind that for me, personally, this is the most exciting, the most meaningful day that I huve ever experienced.

"I feel that what these men have done has been a great inspiratio nto all of us. I think also what the mon on the ground have done is an inspiration to us. How men react in adversity determines their true greatness, and these men have demonstrated that the American character is sound and strong and capable of taking a very difficult situation and turning it into really a very successful venture." Earlier he had issued a written statement that pointed out the dangers of manned flight to the moon and said: "Apollo 13 reminds us how real those dangers are. It reminds us of the special qualities of the men who dare to brave the perils of space. To the astronauts, a relieved nation says 'welcome To them and to those on the ground who did so magnificent a job of guiding Apollo 13 safely back from the edge of eternity, a.grateful nation says 'well Crowded around the television set during the recovery were, along with the President and the two astronauts, White House assistants H.

R. "Bob" Haldeman and Henry A. Kissinger, as well as others. Washington Post Service HOUSTON The Apollo 13 astronauts ended their harrowing seven-day space voyage yesterday exhausted from lack of sleep and feeling the effects of drinking too little water, according to their physician, Dr. Charles Berry.

"They ae extremely tired and somewhat dehydrated," Berry said here after receiving a preliminary report from space doctors on board the recovery ship Iwo Jima. They looked fatigued and their eyes were bloodshot when astronauts Fred W. Haise James A. Lovell and John L. Swigert Jr.

stepped on board ship from the helicopter that plucked them from the sea. "It was just about impossible to sleep. We were just dozing," Haise told Dr. Gilbert J. Sales, the flight surgeon who met them at the helicopter door.

Despite the fatigue, the chief NASA doctor on board the Iwo Jima pronounced the astronauts healthy and said, "They all look good." Soon after boarding the Iwo Jima at 1:51 p.m., the three astronauts were brought into the recovery ship's elaborately equipped sick bay. Nine space agency doctors three for each man began a three-hour-long preliminary medical examination. One of the first things the doctors did was take blood samples to be rushed here. Originally these samples were to be snatched by a passing plane from a balloon hovering above the helicopter carrying the astronauts to the ship. But Dr.

Berry canceled those plans because he feared losing the valuable samples to the sea if the snatch failed. Dr, Baird said the samples will degenerate slightly because of the extra 20 hours it will take to fly them here. Space doctors were denied one important measure of the astronauts' health during the aborted mission. To conserve critically needed electricity, they gave up the biomedical data that normally measure the breathing and heartbeats of at least one astronaut most of the time. Just before re-entry, when Swigert and Haise donned their bio-medical sensors, flight surgeons here reported that their heart rate was more than 100 beats a minute slightly higher than normal.

NASA officials said this was due to their increased work load. Although there have been manned spa ceflights that have been twice as. long as Apollo 13, none had been as full of physical and mental stresses as this one. The three-man crew had only 56 hours of normal flight after liftoff, then an' explosion ripped away a side panel of their service module. From Monday night on they were in a life-or-death emergency situation sleeping fitfully and infrequently, eating badly, suffering from the cold and worrying about possible shortages of oxygen and excesses of carbon dioxide.

Although there was no shortage of drinking water on board the crippled spacecraft, the astronauts appeared reluctant to take too much of it. Cool and not big heads prevail HOUSTON (UPI) The splashdown party a usually boisterous post-mission celebration characterized by consumption of large amounts of alcoholic the quietest in history after Apollo 13. Workers at the Manned Spacecraft Center and hundreds of members of the world's press usually end up a successful spaceflight with an uninhibited celebration that starts soon after splashdown and lasts most of the night. After Apollo 13, however, celebrations were at a minimum. Associate Pits; ur.

and Mrs. J. L. Swigert enjoy champagne after "beautiful ending" Swigerts: world reaction a 'miracle- Apollo wives sum it up: 'great day' Associated Press DENVER The voyage of Apollo 13 had "a wonderful beginning and a beautiful ending, but I wouldn't give you two hoots for anything that happened in between," the beaming father of astronaut John L. Swigert Jr.

declared following the troubled moonship's return to earth yesterday. Dr. J. Leonard Swigert, 67, watched with his wife and a houseful of friends and relatives as the Apollo 13 capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The Swigerts said they talked by telephone with President Nixon from Washington, and with their son from the recovery ship Iwo Jima following the landing.

Dressed warmly against chilly Denver temperatures, they carried plastic glasses filled with champagne as they met newsmen on the front porch of their home. "Everyone in the world was willing to help," said Swigert, an eye specialist. "That's the miracle." The Swigerts said Nixon expressed relief the moonship crew had landed safely and praised the work of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the spacecraft home. They said their son, a 38 year old bachelor, told them he was disappointed he didn't get closer to the moon, and was in good health. The Swigerts said they plan to go to Houston today and expect to see their son tomorrow.

Associated fnut Mrs, Fred Helse, left, and children, Stove, 8, Frederick, 11, and Mary J4 that with newsmen alter safe landing of crippled Apollo 13. Associated Press HOUSTON The title of happiest women in the world might easily have gone yesterday to the two Apollo 13 wives. "That was the most beautiful sight I've ever see," Mary Haise told President Nixon when he called congratulations. this a great day-'! radiant Marilyn Lovell asked a front yard press conference after Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell Fred W.

Haise and John Swigert a bachelor, were safely aboard the recovery phip. just 'wonderful," said mother in Denver as she and her husband passed out champagne to one and all. Each of the three women got a personal call from Nixon in addition to specially arranged telephone calls from the astronauts via the Manned Spacecraft Center's communication network. "I'm just very thankful and very humble," said Mrs. Lovell, smiling broadly.

She wore a chic black, red and white striped knit dress. Beside her were three of their children: Barbara, 16, Susan, 11, and Jeffrey, 4. Mrs. Lovell talked by telephone with son James III at his school in Wisconsin. Mrs.

Lovell was asked about her husband's announced plan to retire from space flights after Apollo 13. "I have always gone along with what be wants to do but selfishly I would not want him to make another flight," she said. She said that, in her talk with Lovell after splashdown he gave no indication the Apollo 13 crew ever feared they might not return. "I have never experienced anything like this in my life and I never want to go through it again," Mrs. Lovell said.

Jeffrey hides his eyes while mother, Mrs. James A Barbara, 16, talk with newsmen alter Apollo.