Hi All
On this day in 1970, The Apollo 13 Space craft lifted off from Kennedy Space Centre. After 2 days there was an explosion onboard and the crew had to abandon their mission and head back home. Their story is a fascinating one and the hardships these three men had to endure became legend.
It was on this mission that the Commander James Lovell said the famous words, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
One thing you may not have known about this was that the Grumman Aerospace Corporation, the folks who built the Lunar Module, issued an invoice for $312,421.24 to North American Rockwell, the folks who built the Command Module, for “towing” the crippled ship to the Moon and back.
The invoice was drawn up by a pilot called Sam Greenberg as a joke following Apollo 13′s successful return to earth.
The invoice included a 20% commercial discount, as well as a further 2%
discount if North American paid in cash.
North American politely declined payment, noting that they had ferried Grumman LMs to the Moon on three previous occasions with no such reciprocal charges
Durban Time
