Well, this is it. The season 2 finale of 13 minutes to the moon is just about to begin.

I'm Patrick I.E. and as a huge fan of 13 minutes, here's my 13 seconds to tell you about

my podcast, also from the BBC World Service. 30 animals that made us smarter. Here goes.

There's a cartwheeling acrobatic spider which could help us explore the surface of Mars.

It's led to an extraordinary robotic design perfect for space exploration. That's just

one of 30 stories about amazing things humans have learnt from the animal kingdom.

Search for 30 animals that made us smarter. And now, this is what we've all been waiting for.

Apollo 13 is within hours of plunging into Earth's atmosphere. From the lunar module,

Commander Jim Lovell sees the world growing ever larger, ever faster.

I'm like I have to run into our Jack and that Earth is with a lot of guys in the brain train.

Scattered clouds and oceans begin to stretch out ahead of them. Their view of the Earth is expanding rapidly.

Lovell, Hayes and Swigger must now reckon with grave unknowns. The command module Odyssey

is the only vehicle built and equipped to get them through the Earth's atmosphere and safely into the ocean.

But for the past four days, they've been forced to leave that spacecraft switched off

completely without power. It's cabin frozen, dark, dead. There's no guarantee it can be resurrected

and even if it can, there's another question. Has the blast damaged Odyssey's heat shield?

Their only protection against the searing heat of reentry.

While I was quite worried, it gets up to about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit to come in through.

And that's not all they have to contend with. The spacecraft also has to enter the atmosphere at

precisely the right angle. A little too steep and Odyssey and the crew will burn up,

too shallow and they'll be deflected, skipping off into deep space,

lost forever. I mean, you're coming back from the moon at 35,000 feet per second.

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