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Lot 330
[Apollo 13] JACK SWIGERT AND JAMES LOVELL BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL: a critical last-minute fix in LM Aquarius Fred Haise, 11-17 April 1970
14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue HocheSold for €4,864 inc. premium
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[Apollo 13] JACK SWIGERT AND JAMES LOVELL BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL: a critical last-minute fix in LM Aquarius
Fred Haise, 11-17 April 1970
Printed 1970.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS13-62-9004].
Numbered "NASA AS13-62-9004" in red in the top margin, with "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
Possibly the most dramatic image of the Apollo Moon missions. This rare photograph captures Jack Swigert and James Lovell inside the lifeboat LM Aquarius, desperately working on a last-minute fix that prevented carbon dioxide poisoning—a crisis that could have been fatal.
As Apollo 13 drifted through deep space, the astronauts faced a life-threatening buildup of CO₂ due to failing lithium hydroxide canisters. Mission Control engineers, working tirelessly on the ground, devised a crude but effective solution using only materials available onboard. CapCom [capsule communication] Joe Kerwin guided Swigert and Lovell step by step as they built a contraption using a suit hose, duct tape, a plastic bag, and the CM's square canisters—famously known as "the mailbox."
In this extraordinary image, Swigert sits next to the taped-over double canister, holding one end of a suit nozzle, while Lovell manipulates the long hose. This ingenious fix, tested on Earth and then replicated in space, saved the crew from suffocation.
James Lovell on facing death in space:
"I think that as long as we had an option, it [thoughts of confronting death] never really came up. [...] If there was a chance to get home, you work on the plus side; you don't work on the minus side."
— James Lovell (Chaikin, Voices, p. 139)
Printed 1970.
Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS13-62-9004].
Numbered "NASA AS13-62-9004" in red in the top margin, with "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA Manned Spacecraft Centre, Houston, Texas).
20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)
Historical context
Possibly the most dramatic image of the Apollo Moon missions. This rare photograph captures Jack Swigert and James Lovell inside the lifeboat LM Aquarius, desperately working on a last-minute fix that prevented carbon dioxide poisoning—a crisis that could have been fatal.
As Apollo 13 drifted through deep space, the astronauts faced a life-threatening buildup of CO₂ due to failing lithium hydroxide canisters. Mission Control engineers, working tirelessly on the ground, devised a crude but effective solution using only materials available onboard. CapCom [capsule communication] Joe Kerwin guided Swigert and Lovell step by step as they built a contraption using a suit hose, duct tape, a plastic bag, and the CM's square canisters—famously known as "the mailbox."
In this extraordinary image, Swigert sits next to the taped-over double canister, holding one end of a suit nozzle, while Lovell manipulates the long hose. This ingenious fix, tested on Earth and then replicated in space, saved the crew from suffocation.
James Lovell on facing death in space:
"I think that as long as we had an option, it [thoughts of confronting death] never really came up. [...] If there was a chance to get home, you work on the plus side; you don't work on the minus side."
— James Lovell (Chaikin, Voices, p. 139)
Footnotes
From the mission transcript when the photograph was taken:
113:55:59 Haise: Okay. We've got both canisters completed now.
113:56:03 Kerwin (Mission Control): Okay. Roger that, Fred. And you're reading 0.1 again on the CO2. Incidentally, are you guys having good luck getting water out of the Command Module?
113:56:17 Haise: We—We haven't tried that yet today.
113:56:20 Kerwin: Okay.
113:56:27 Haise: Yes. This is quite an apparatus hanging on to these hoses now. And that ECS design engineer... because it sure seems to work.
Literature
LIFE, 1 May 1971, p.30
TIME, 4 May 1970, p. 82
Apollo Expeditions to the Moon (NASA SP-350), Cortright, ed., chapter 13.4
Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts, Jacobs, p. 85