An artist's concept by Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical, San Diego, California, showing two Apollo 13 astronauts exploring the lunar surface. In the center background is the Lunar Module. Astronauts James Lovell and Fred Haise are represented by the two men in this picture.

Just before 3 am this morning, the Apollo 13 crew successfully carried out a mid-course correction and a TV transmission at the same time.

With a strenuous time ahead of them when once they get to the moon, the crew are being given as restful a time as possible on the long journey there. The mid-course correction - a three and a half second burn slowing the spacecraft by 15 mph - was much more successful than the TV show that Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert gave with it.

Pictures of the moon they sent back out of the windows were rather less impressive than could be seen with one's feet on the ground. And Swigert seemed somewhat embarrassed when doing the now-familiar demonstration of spinning his weightless pencil before the camera.

Before that, there was some ground-to-spacecraft discussion on why there was so much vibration during the launch that one of the sensors automatically shut down one of the Stage 2 engines two minutes early - an important technical problem that will have to be solved before the next flight. And Mission Control agreed to send up a repeat list of photographic tasks for Jack Swigert to perform while he's alone in lunar orbit during the time that Lovell and Haise are on the moon. Swigert confessed to Mission Control that, when suiting up at Cape Kennedy, he'd forgotten the card telling him which pictures were essential for future flights, and which could be omitted if he proved to be too busy.