Apollo: The Race To The Moon

by Catherine Bly Cox

The resulting gases blew out one of the panels in the service module. That explosion also probably broke a small line that fed a pressure sensor on the outside of O2 Tank 1, opening a small leak. Once the service module panel blew out, the vacuum of space extinguished the fire. All the crew knew was that something had made a loud bang and jolted the spacecraft. Actually, the crew of Thirteen was exceedingly lucky. The explosive force could have broken the tension ties holding the command module to the service module, depriving Odyssey of the precious few hours the remaining fuel cell gave them. It could have cracked the heat shield. Or the wiring in the tank could have short-circuited later in the mission, after the LEM had already been used for the lunar landing. If the explosion had occurred while the LEM was on the lunar surface, the result would have been especially ghoulish, with two healthy astronauts stranded on the moon while the command module and its pilot died overhead.