Could have been worse dept.

[cmdr_zoom]

Those of you who have watched and/or read about Apollo 13 may recall that during launch, the center engine on the second stage cut out early, requiring the other four to burn a little longer in order to achieve an ultimately successful orbit. This was a case of one system working perfectly, and responding to a failure in another: an automatic safety cutoff (especially vital during the information overload of liftoff) had noticed that Engine Five was starting to "pogo", flexing up and down in its mount as it built up resonance. If not shut off, the engine was perhaps seconds away from tearing free and launching itself up through the center of the rocket, with consequences for vehicle and crew best described as "catastrophic" or simply "BOOM."

(Can you tell I've been playing a lot of Kerbal Space Program lately?)