The scribblings by astronaut Jim Lovell that brought crippled Apollo 13 home goes on auction

The handwritten notes which saved the lives of the astronauts on the  Apollo 13 mission are set to fetch £60,000 at auction.

The notes, made famous by the hit 1995 film starring Tom Hanks, were used by Commander Jim Lovell to work out how to perform a vital 'burn' on the way back to Earth.

The sheet, which contains Commander Lovell's hand-written notes, is being sold by Mr Haise, who is now 79-years-old and living in Florida. The note is being sold by Bonhams in New York on March 25.

If Commander Lovell had got the sums wrong then it is likely that he and his fellow astronauts, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, would have perished in space.

The world was said to have held its breath after Apollo 13 suffered an explosion on its way to the Moon in April 1970.

The blast left the spacecraft crippled, prompting the famous line 'Houston, we've had a problem' from Commander Lovell. The crew had to abort the mission to land on the Moon because of the explosion. However, despite limited power, plummeting temperatures, shortage of water and rising carbon dioxide levels the crew returned safely to Earth four days later.

As the crippled spacecraft's navigation equipment was not working correctly the commander used the Earth as a reference point. 

If the craft had been pointing in the wrong direction at the time of the burn the crew would likely have been shot into space with no hope of correcting their course to return home.

View video of actual events of the grim Apollo 13 mission released by NASA:

Read more about it at: Mail Online
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Neil Armstrong to be buried at sea

It has been decided by the family of the famed astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to have landed on the moon, to be buried at sea. It is however not known that this 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' decision had anything to do with the will of the dead astronaut.

The family of the Navy fighter pilot-turned-astronaut however did not specify where exactly they intend to have that service. 

Given the fact that Armstrong made his name by being the first man to walk on the moon, the choice to be laid to rest at the depths of the ocean may seem odd, but the practice is common for veterans of the Navy.

Read more: Daily Mail

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Sally Ride, the First American Woman In Space, dies at 61

Sally Ride, the first American woman to fly in space has died from pancreatic cancer, her website confirms. She was 61. 

Sally Ride, aboard space shuttle Challenger in 1982 [Photo: Business Insider]

Ride is famous for becoming the first American woman to fly in space when the shuttle Challenger launched on June 18, 1982. Two years later, she flew again on the Challenger for the 13th shuttle flight.  

Ride left NASA in 1987 to teach physics at Stanford University and then at the University of California, San Diego. She founded Sally Ride Science in 2001, which creates classroom materials and training for teachers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Read more: Business Insider

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