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For those of you who have seen and enjoyed the earlier volumes in the series you will find the usual format and the wealth of technical detail in the text is extensive . The difference in the case of Apollo 13 is , of course , obvious ! Here , we see the mission as it was meant to happen and the digest of what actually took place . The post-mission postmortem of the cause and nature of the Service Module failure is particularly informative and although it is not explicit , the narrow margin between the life and death of the crew is underlined . Had the explosion taken place any earlier or later in the mission , the prospect of a successful return to earth would , for many reasons , have been extremely remote , if not in many scenarios non-existant . The CD again has a load of interesting material , some contemporary and fairly well known , but some not . The highlight is the interview with Jim Lovell who must qualify as the most jolly and affable of all the surviving astronauts! As previously , this is hardly a book for the reader with a passing interest in space history or the mission itself but those already "in the know" will undoubtedly find it a useful text from which clearly set out the facts of this pivotal mission - if the crew had been lost , would congress or the American public have allowed Apollos 14 through 17 to have gone ahead ? Think what knowledge and science could have been lost thereby ? I was also pleased to note that more volumes are planned for this year and also others in due course for not only the other moon missions but also for to include more Mercury , Gemini and Skylab flights . Anyone who wants to know about the mission from the purely human perspective should read Lovell and Kluger`s "Apollo 13" , published , I believe , as "Lost Moon" in the US .
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