One Giant Leap for Mankind: Vintage Photographs from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection 
28 October 2022
One Giant Leap for Mankind: Vintage Photographs from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection 
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NASA's finest hour: safe splashdown and recovery of Apollo 13 in the Pacific Ocean (two photos), NASA [Apollo 13], 17 April 1970

printed 1970
vintage gelatin silver prints on fiber-based paper 8 h × 10 w in (20 × 25 cm)
estimate: $1,000–1,500
result: $625
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A perilous space mission comes to a smooth ending with the safe splashdown of the Apollo 13 Command Module (CM) in the South Pacific, only four miles from the prime recovery ship.
Numbered to upper margin of each photo 'NASA S-70-35604' and 'NASA S-70-35604' with NASA MSC caption to verso of one.

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A perilous space mission comes to a smooth ending with the safe splashdown of the Apollo 13 Command Module (CM) in the South Pacific, only four miles from the prime recovery ship. The spacecraft with astronauts James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr., and Fred W. Haise Jr. aboard, splashed down at 12:07:44 p.m. (CST) April 17, 1970, to conclude safely the problem-plagued flight. The crewmen were transported by helicopter from the immediate recovery area to the USS Iwo Jima, prime recovery vessel. [NASA caption for the first photograph]

“The finest hour, in my viewpoint, of the space program was getting Apollo 13 back, not the first lunar landing.”

—Thomas Stafford, Apollo 10 astronaut (Chaikin, Voices, pg. 150)

RECOVERY AREA, SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN
APOLLO 13 RECOVERY - A water level view of the Apollo 13 recovery operations in the South Pacific Ocean. Astronaut Fred W. Haise Jr., lunar module pilot, is about to be hoisted up, in a Billy Pugh net, to a recovery Navy helicopter from the USS Iwo Jima. Awaiting their turn are astronauts John L. Swigert Jr., (center), command module pilot; and James A. Lovell Jr., (right), commander. A member of a United States Navy underwater demolition team assists with the recovery. The Apollo 13 Command Module (CM) splashed down at 12:07:44 p.m. (CST), April 17, 1970, to conclude safely a perilous space flight. Though the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission was canceled, a disastrous loss of three astronauts was averted.
[NASA caption for the second photograph]

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