What If Apollo 13 Failed to Return Home? New Video Tells All

The options at the time, if they hit the window it would be ok, which they did, if too shallow, bounce off the atmosphere, or too steep they would burn up, The scenarios didn't change, just more detailed.

p911

I think another unanswered question might be what would have happened to manned spaceflight (that of the US in particular but all nations in general) had Apollo 13 ended more tragically - particuarly in their presumably lingering deaths in a non-reentry scenario.

There were scheduled flights after 13. Our prestige was at stake. And the US just could not afford any of that. Remember, unlike our adversaries, we showed and broadcast every thing live. Giving up was not an option.

And 13 actually showed NASA's finer moments of the quality of training our program had, from the ground up. No different than the shake up from Apollo I disaster.

I see no different from Challenger major malfunction. Future Flights would be canceled until the problem corrected satisfactory. But lets not lessen the issues, even at the time, yes it could have gone either way.

p911