apollo 13 lunar module

Just wondering if anyone knows the fate of the lem aquarius?
did it eventually fall and burn up in the atmosphere? if so is
there any documentation of when and where? thanks dave

"bearbear" wrote in message
ups.com...
Just wondering if anyone knows the fate of the lem aquarius?
did it eventually fall and burn up in the atmosphere?

Yes.
if so is
there any documentation of when and where? thanks dave


Yes. It was targeted at the western Pacific so that the RTG would ideally
land in the deepest part of the ocean.

On 6 Sep 2005 11:07:29 -0700, "bearbear" wrote:

Just wondering if anyone knows the fate of the lem aquarius?
did it eventually fall and burn up in the atmosphere? if so is
there any documentation of when and where? thanks dave

Aquarius followed Odyssey into Earth's atmosphere and burned up not
long after Odyssey's splashdown. Any remains were targetted to fall in
the deep Pacific, to minimize the danger of the plutonium-powered RTG
onboard leaking. (We're expecting Godzilla's rampage in Tokyo any day
now...)

Brian

Brian Thorn wrote:

On 6 Sep 2005 11:07:29 -0700, "bearbear" wrote:

Just wondering if anyone knows the fate of the lem aquarius?
did it eventually fall and burn up in the atmosphere? if so is
there any documentation of when and where? thanks dave

Aquarius followed Odyssey into Earth's atmosphere and burned up not
long after Odyssey's splashdown. Any remains were targetted to fall in
the deep Pacific, to minimize the danger of the plutonium-powered RTG
onboard leaking. (We're expecting Godzilla's rampage in Tokyo any day
now...)

Did anyone ever calculate the likely impact point for the RTG?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Derek Lyons wrote:

Brian Thorn wrote:
Aquarius followed Odyssey into Earth's atmosphere and burned up not
long after Odyssey's splashdown. Any remains were targetted to fall in
the deep Pacific, to minimize the danger of the plutonium-powered RTG
onboard leaking. (We're expecting Godzilla's rampage in Tokyo any day
now...)

Did anyone ever calculate the likely impact point for the RTG?

Yes, someone did, of course, and it was expected to be intact in "the
20,000-foot-deep Tonga Trench in the Pacific Ocean." but I don't know
details beyond that.

I read one source that said the impact site was later sampled to look for
leakage (finding none), so maybe there are answers buried in one of those
obscure NASA or DOE PDFs our scavengers like to find.

--
Bill Higgins | "It's so difficult to explain
| to people who are used to the Web why,
Fermilab | before the Web, it was so difficult
| to explain to people
| what the Web was all about."
| --Sir Tim Berners-Lee

On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Bill Higgins wrote:

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, Derek Lyons wrote:
Did anyone ever calculate the likely impact point for the RTG?

Yes, someone did, of course, and it was expected to be intact in "the
20,000-foot-deep Tonga Trench in the Pacific Ocean." but I don't know details
beyond that.

I read one source that said the impact site was later sampled to look for
leakage (finding none), so maybe there are answers buried in one of those
obscure NASA or DOE PDFs our scavengers like to find.

Well, International Atomic Energy Agency, but I had the right idea.

According to IAEA-TECDOC-1242, "Inventory of accidents and losses at sea
involving radioactive material"
http://wacid.kins.re.kr/DOCU/FILE/IAEA-TECDOC-1242.pdf, the Apollo 13 RTG
impact site is approxmately 21 deg 38 min S 165 deg 22 min W, near the Tonga
Trench south of Fiji, but "the exact location is unknown."

This is about halfway between Niue and the Cook Islands. Google Maps
suggests it's in a flat part of the sea bottom, not particularly near the
trench. I'd guess it's more than 3000 feet deep, maybe more than 5000, but
not 20,000.

Here's the IAEA summary:

==========

Spacecraft Apollo 13: After a successful launch on 11 April 1970 a
malfunction occurred in the oxygen supply on board the manned spacecraft
Apollo 13 on its way to the moon. The astronauts had to use the lunar
landing module as a survival facility during a flight around the moon and
returned to earth with the lunar landing module attached. The landing
module, with a SNAP-27 radioisotope generator containing 1.63 PBq of 238Pu,
re-entered the atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean on 17 April 1970. The
generator entered intact, as designed, and landed in the deep ocean south of
the Fiji Islands in the vicinity of the Tonga Trench. Atmospheric samples
showed no evidence of release of 238Pu into the atmosphere. No attempt has
been made to recover the generator from the 6000 m depth since the exact
location is unknown.

==========

Ah. They took atmospheric samples, not water samples. The document
suggests that the site does not have ongoing monitoring.

I think "PBq" is probably "Petabecquerel," which one doesn't see too often.
That's about 44 kilocuries, which seems right.

--
Bill Higgins | "It's very mysterious that the universe
Fermilab | is not only expanding, but is doing so at
| an accelerating rate. Perhaps this is because
Internet: | it's filled with increasing amounts of
| increasingly repulsive spam."
| --Keith F. Lynch [e-mail address redacted out of mercy]

On 2005-09-06, Derek Lyons wrote:

Aquarius followed Odyssey into Earth's atmosphere and burned up not
long after Odyssey's splashdown. Any remains were targetted to fall in
the deep Pacific, to minimize the danger of the plutonium-powered RTG
onboard leaking. (We're expecting Godzilla's rampage in Tokyo any day
now...)

Did anyone ever calculate the likely impact point for the RTG?

Yes, and a few aerial sampling flights were done shortly after burnup to
see if any Pu had been released (not that they could have done anything
by that point, but it'd have been useful to know). If memory serves,
nothing was detected.

--
-Andrew Gray