On April 17 of 1970, the World held its breath when astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, launched themselves towards the Earth at more than 20,000 miles an hour. Soon they were fighting to survive, for six days, in a spacecraft damaged by an explosion in the oxygen tanks. They had consumed most of their supplies, and now it all came down to the moment of re-entry. If they hit the Earth’s atmosphere at the wrong angle, they’d die in space or be scorched by the heat of re-entry. Mission controllers in Houston, Texas, agonized through the last…

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