Apollo 13.

Unlucky number 13 was the Apollo mission that never landed on the Moon and barely made it back to Earth. NASA had had one previous disaster: in 1967 three astronauts died in a fire on the launchpad. But the Apollo 13 accident in 1970 was unprecedented for the American space program. Three men in space, with the eyes of the world upon them, suddenly heard a loud bang and watched as their oxygen tanks suddenly emptied. "OK, Houston, we've had a problem," they reported to the command center in a masterpiece of understatement. They still had the Lunar Module, though, and used it as a lifeboat on the long, cold trip home. The temperature was lowered to 38° F to conserve oxygen and electricity. Even so, the astronauts barely made it back to Earth ahead of the failure of their oxygen.

The Soyuz Mission.

The following year...