April 11 - 17, 1970
CSM Odyssey, LM Aquarius

The Crew

The original Apollo 13 prime crew. From left to right are: Commander, James A. Lovell, Command Module pilot, Thomas K. Mattingly and Lunar Module pilot, Fred W. Haise. Command Module pilot Thomas "Ken" Mattingly was exposed to German measles prior to his mission and was replaced by his backup, Command Module pilot, John L."Jack" Swigert Jr.

A Personal Story...

..."When we got the patch together, and I'm talking now about Mattingly, Haise and myself, we were the first to take the science aspect of the flight se- riously. The scientists and geologistd basicly said "Hey, 11 landed and they proved that that was an engineering flight and everything worked fine." Apollo-12 was still much of an engineering flight. They wanted to test the guidance system to get near the Surveyor. But the scientists were getting edgy so, we went out and were one of the first ones to really start being a scientific type operation.

The idea of that patch patch was essentially mine. I didn't draw it; I drew the other three patches (Gemini-7, Gemini-12 and Apollo-8). I said we wanted to do something with Apollo. I started out the design of this patch with the idea of the mythical god, Apollo, driving his chariot across the sky and dragging the sun with it. We eventually gave this idea to an artist in New York City named Lumen Winter, and he eventually came up with the three horse design wich symbolized the Apollo but also included the Earth and the Moon.

The funny thing is that Winter, prior to making the patch for us, made a large wall mural of horses crossing the sky with the Earth below wich is prominently displayed at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. The horses are very similar to the ones on our patch, except that it had a fourth horse falling back and that, ironically, could have been Ken Mattingly who was replaced before our flight. That mural now is in New Jersey someplace. Anyway, we said, "why put names on it?" We decided to eliminate the names and instead put in the Latin "Ex Luna, Scientia" or "From the Moon, Knowledge." I plagiarized this somewhat because it is similar to the Naval Academy "EX trident, scientia" which is "From the sea, knowledge"...

Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, said he was never superstitious and neither was his crew. His original command module pilot, Thomas "Ken" Mattingly, in fact, wanted a Friday the 13th launch so the mission patch could bear a picture of a black cat.

The Artwork

This is the insignia of the Apollo 13 lunar landing mission. The Apollo 13 prime crew will be astronauts James A. Lovell Jr., commander; Thomas K. Mattingly ll, command module pilot; and Fred W. Haise Jr., lunar module pilot. Represented in the Apollo 13 emblem is Apollo, the sun god of Greek mythology, symbolizing how the Apollo flights have extended the light of knowledge to all mankind. The Latin phrase Ex Luna, Scientia means "From the Moon, Knowledge." Apollo 13 will be the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) third lunar landing mission.

Lion Brothers

Above the Lion Brothers Apollo-13 patch. It is believed that Astronaut Jim Lovell carried some LB patches on the flight in his PPK. The LB Apollo-13 hallmark, a "13" in the horse mane below the sun, see below.