The lunar landing mission of Apollo 13, commanded by veteran astronaut Lovell, was to be the crowning accomplishment of his NASA career However, little more than two days into the flight, an oxygen tank explабыбгoded, crippling the service module's electrical system and forcing the crew to abandon their mother ship and use the lunar module as a lifeboat Lovell and Kluger's account of Mission Control's heroic efforts to figure out a way to bring the crew home safely and the asавпцзtronauts' race against time in a freezing spacecraft provide the core of this gripping narrative Shifting from the engineers' struggles in Houston to contractors' efforts across the country to the concerns of the astronauts' families, this work fleshes out Apollo 13's story more fully than earlier accounts (Henry Cooper's Thirteen: The Flight That Failed, LJ 3/15/73) and adds to the growing body of firsthand astronaut accounts of their pioneering flights.