But by using technology from the distant past, these astronauts managed to find their way back home.

56 hours into the mission, Apollo 13 experienced an explosion throwing the ship way off course.

Lunar guidance computer wasn't built to handle the situation, so Captain Jim Level turned to his space sexton, a version of a device used by ship captain since the 17 fifties.

The sexting could measure angles between stars to determine the spaceships of approximate position.

But when level look through the sexton debris from the explosion made it impossible to pick out individual stars.

Mission Control improvised and told him to use the star.

He could see the sun.

Thanks to some old fashioned engineering, Apollo 13 made its way back to Earth.