Every Apollo mission up to 13 that went to the moon was already on a trajectory to return it to Earth via slingshot if there was an issue (i.e. SPS engine failed to fire for LOI). Shortly after TLI for Apollo 13, a burn was made to take Apollo 13 off this trajectory in order to reach Frau Mora (their landing site) at a specific time of the lunar cycle to provide good visibility for landing. The Apollo 13 loop around decision was very probably already on the books prior to the flight for just such an eventuality, and while any number of engineers (or hippies) could have initially developed such a burn, it is the flight director's (in this case Gene Kranz and others) who would ultimately review the procedure and make the final decision to perform the burn to return them to their free-return trajectory. To say that an MIT student "saved" Apollo 13 doesn't meet with the facts of the mission.
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Every Apollo mission up to 13 that went to the moon was already on a trajectory to return it to Earth via slingshot if there was an issue (i.e. SPS engine failed to fire for LOI). Shortly after TLI for Apollo 13, a burn was made to take Apollo 13 off this trajectory in order to reach Frau Mora (their landing site) at a specific time of the lunar cycle to provide good visibility for landing. The Apollo 13 loop around decision was very probably already on the books prior to the flight for just such an eventuality, and while any number of engineers (or hippies) could have initially developed such a burn, it is the flight director's (in this case Gene Kranz and others) who would ultimately review the procedure and make the final decision to perform the burn to return them to their free-return trajectory. To say that an MIT student "saved" Apollo 13 doesn't meet with the facts of the mission.
This one still has much to learn. "This weapon is your life"