From Ken Tucker:
In popular televised accounts the A13 3 astronauts had a problem
with cold, due to power conservation, but they aren't shown wearing
their space suits to keep warmer. Did they, if not why not?


My A13 spacesuit question is why didn't they suit up and do an EVA to photograph and report on the damage?

Years back I asked key decision makers involved (Kraft, Kranz, Lunney, Griffin, etc) and I was told that they were simply focused on bringing the crew back alive. Considering how there were still six more missions on the schedule, this struck me as very short sighted. It certainly would have taken their mind off the cold for several hours. It also would have put them back into a strong sense of mission, and ideally it would have given great info on how to make sure this wouldn't happen again. If they opened the hatch, stepped outside and encountered anything that appeared that it might be a bad risk, then they always had the option of aborting the EVA.

Maybe Sy would like to let us know if he remembers any discussion about maybe doing an EVA. It seems to me that banking the remainder of the program - 75% of the landing missions - on photos the crew might get on a jettisoned SM through their tiny windows as it receded away from them was rolling the dice to a far greater extent than the risk a deep space EMU outing would have caused.

~ CT