Fred Haise, Apollo 13 astronaut, tells of an unfortunate mission: "We have never reached the edge of the cliff"

On April 11, 1970, NASA astronaut Fred Haise was preparing to follow in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and walk on the surface of the Moon.

When Apollo 13 took off Saturday night in the sunny Florida skies above a Saturn V rocket, the mission marked NASA's third lunar landing test. Haise, the pilot of the lunar module of the mission, was to become the sixth person to walk on the lunar surface, just after the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, Jim Lovell, who would become the fifth.

But 56 hours later, when Apollo 13 was about 200,000 km from Earth, an oxygen tank in the spacecraft service module exploded. The goal of the mission has quickly moved from exploration to survival.

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"After the explosion, when I got back into the mother ship, the control module, I was in the lunar module for a TV show. In fact, I had just finished it and I looked at the panel and realized that we had lost the oxygen tank 2, "he explained. "I was frankly, immediately disgusted, and I knew we had lost the landing mission."

"[I] I did not think it was life threatening … we had a second tank, it seemed intact, "added Haise, who was speaking at a key event for Christie's auction" One Giant Leap: celebrate space exploration 50 years after Apollo 11. "

However, the oxygen tank 1 has been damaged.

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"It took a while, probably more than 20 minutes or more, because it became clear that there was a leak, a slow leak, but nevertheless a leak in this tank too," Haise said. "Only then did we think it would be life-threatening. We had a lot of people with Mission Control people, trying different isolations and switches to try to isolate the leak and that lasted almost an hour – about that time, we realized that we were short of ideas, they and ourselves. "

At that time, Haise and Lovell left their fellow astronaut, Jack Swigert, in the control module and went to feed the lunar module. "We knew we would need it at least for communication, environmental systems and propulsion, probably to try to get us home," he said. "It took time for people to work on the situation we had in hand and develop another plan."

Working with mission control, astronauts have faced many challenges. As the carbon dioxide in the lunar module reached a dangerous level, the crew had to adapt lithium hydroxide cartridges designed for the control module to operate in the lunar module. A swarm of debris from the blast also made navigation difficult. The dramatic events are featured in the Hollywood movie "Apollo 13", in which Haise is portrayed by the late actor, Bill Paxton.

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Suffering from lack of sleep, food and water in the cold spaceship, Haise, Lovell and Swigert felt extreme physical discomfort as they guided Apollo 13 to Earth.

Nevertheless, Haise told Fox News that he was still confident that the mission would reach home. "There has never been a time when we had not arrived where we needed – to have already found something else, and it was not ready, "he explained. "We have never reached the edge of the cliff."

As the world looked forward, Apollo 13 re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on April 17 and splashed into the South Pacific. "When you realize that you're finally done, it's when you look out the window and see the big main chutes," he said. "We were obviously very happy to come back to this point. Anyway, he had been very miserable over the past three and a half days, it was very cold and wet in the spaceship. "

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Haise fell ill during the mission, so he had to miss the celebration aboard the US salvage ship. Iwo Jima.

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The astronaut, who flew the lunar rescue module for Apollo 11, remained in the Apollo program, although funding problems have unfortunately thwarted his ambition to return to the moon. He was then Technical Assistant to the Space Shuttle Orbiter Program Manager, and in 1977, he completed spacecraft Enterprise Space Shuttle prototype approach and landing tests.

He left NASA in 1979 to join Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

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Although he never set foot on the lunar surface, Haise was able to see the natural satellite of the Earth closely when Apollo 13 passed near the Moon.

"For me, it was a little sad, as we passed, I could look [the] Fra Mauro [region on the Moon], where we were hoping to have landed on Apollo 13, "he told Fox News." But, otherwise, the view was spectacular. "

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers