Yesterday felt like the end of the Apollo thirteen flight to me. The supposed three minutes through the atmosphere, when it actually took over four minutes. Flight kept saying, "Apollo 13 this is Houston please respond, Apollo 13 this is Houston please respond". From my perspective it looks like three minutes was February, and it will be March before splashdown.

As I recall, the reason they were coming in shallow was due to lack of ballast. They were supposed to get rocks from the moon, and store them in the command module. The appropriate weight will create the right window of approach. Too light and they bounce right off the atmosphere, too heavy and they roman candle and burn up.

So I am like I was in 1969. Waiting, "no space flight has ever taken longer that three minutes to get through the atmophere"...Walter Cronkite, and he goes on about the heat sheild, and the parachutes etc... I was pretty young, and didn't know how much about what was happening, but everyone was talking about crash and burn (on Kitco) or bouncing off the atmosphere (on Agoracom).

Well I hope the crew will transfer the ballast (carbons) from RC, and are send them to the command module (plant for smelting). I hope we do this soon, because the sp is getting pretty shallow, and I don't have the money or the time for another burn. Retirement is getting pretty big in the window! Boot