Aerospace: Panel will recall tense moments of Apollo 13

Next month will mark 40 years since the fate of three American astronauts hung in the balance for four days after an oxygen tank exploded aboard their Apollo 13 spacecraft.

Astronauts James Lovell, John "Jack" Swigert and Fred W. Haise were forced to use the lunar lander, built by the Grumman Corp. on Long Island, to make their way back to Earth.The lunar lander was built solely to take the astronauts to the moon's surface, not to be used as a "lifeboat," as it came to be described.

On April 24, the Cradle of Aviation Museum in East Garden City will observe the event - which kept people around the world on the edge of their seats for the four days - by holding a panel discussion that will be open to the public. Dick Dunne, a retired public relations executive at Grumman, will moderate. Haise, who became a Grumman executive after leaving the astronaut corps, and Joe Gavin, a retired Grumman president who oversaw much of the company's space efforts in the 1960s and '70s, will be panelists.

Dunne. They said, 'We've got a problem. We see pressure dropping in the service module' of the spacecraft. "I said, 'That's not good.' We left our meals too."