Disaster in Space

Essential questions: How can creativity help solve problems? What drives us to explore What is the value of space exploration?

Preview vocabulary. (5 minutes)

Project our Words to Know Vocabulary Slideshow and go through the words as a class. Highlighted words: catapulted, critical, dismal, lunar, monitored, orbit, satellite, vying. (You will do the activity later in the lesson.)

Watch the video (15 minutes)

Watch the Behind the Scenes video. Then hand out or project the Video Discussion Questions and preview as a class. Watch the video a second time, pausing to discuss the questions along the way.

Read “Disaster in Space” as a class, starting with the “As You Read” box on page 5. Then break students into groups to discuss the following questions.

Close-Reading Questions

• Consider the illustration, headline, and tag line on pages 4-5. What do they tell you? (text features) The headline and tag line tell the reader what the story is about: a terrible disaster that happened during a space mission. The illustration shows the damaged ship; it also explains the parts of the spacecraft.
• What mood do the headline, tag line, and illustration create? What effect do they have on the reader? (text features, mood) They create a mood of fear and suspense. They make the reader wonder what happened and whether the astronauts survived.
• On page 6, author Lauren Tarshis writes that the journey to the moon “would not be a luxurious ride.” How does she support this statement? (supporting details) Tarshis supports this statement by explaining the conditions inside the command module: The astronauts didn’t have much room, and they had to store their solid waste, eat unappetizing food, and go without showering.
• What does the section “A Space Race” add to the article? (text structure) The section “A Space Race” adds historical context to the article. It explains that the idea of sending humans to the moon grew out of a competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
• What was the purpose of the parachutes on the Odyssey? Why were they important? (key idea) The Odyssey returned to Earth by free-falling to the surface. The parachutes were needed to slow the module down so it could land safely.
• How does Tarshis view the Apollo 13 astronauts? (tone) Tarshis seems to admire them greatly. She shows how tough they were by explaining what they went through blasting away from Earth (“They felt as though their bones might shatter”) and the challenging living conditions inside the spacecraft. She shows their discipline and coolness by explaining how they stayed calm and “got to work” after the explosion, even though the outlook was “dismal.” She shows their fortitude by describing how they survived despite having very little sleep, no heat, and life-threatening problems constantly cropping up.
• How does Tarshis create suspense in the last section of the article? (author’s craft) Tarshis creates suspense in several ways. First, she reminds the reader that returning through the atmosphere would be the “most perilous” part of Apollo 13’s return. She then poses a series of questions about everything that could go wrong. Next, she explains that the astronauts’ “fate” would be known in four minutes. Using line breaks and italicized text, she draws those four minutes out, capturing the feeling in Mission Control as the agonizing minutes ticked by without word from the astronauts.

Bring the class back together and complete the activity portion of the Words to Know Vocabulary Slideshow. Then have students answer the following critical-thinking questions. Encourage them to use their new vocabulary in their discussions.

Critical-Thinking Questions (10 minutes)

• Ingenuity is the quality of being clever and inventive. How was the Apollo 13 mission an example of the power of human ingenuity? Without human ingenuity, the astronauts would not have made it to space and they would not have made it home. NASA engineers had to get creative to help the astronauts survive—from coming up with a way to filter out the toxic air to turning the LEM into a lifeboat. In other words, the engineers’ ingenuity wasn’t used just to explore space; it was also used to save lives.
• Tarshis writes that at the time of the Apollo 13 mission, many people were questioning the value of space exploration. Were those concerns justified? Answers will vary. Students might say yes, the concerns were justified; there were many problems to deal with on Earth that were more important. Or students might say no, the concerns were not justified; humans are naturally curious, and it is important for us to learn about the natural world, including space. Plus, during a time of war and widespread poverty, the Apollo 13 mission brought the nation together in shared concern for the astronauts.

Distribute the activity sheet A Successful Failure, which will prepare students to respond to the prompt on page 10. For alternative culminating tasks, see the boxes below.