By Emma Innes PUBLISHED: 08:42 EST, 7 March 2013 | UPDATED: 19:44 EST, 7 March 2013 The handwritten notes which saved the lives of the astronauts on the  Apollo 13 mission are set to fetch £60,000 at auction. The notes, made famous by the hit 1995 film starring Tom Hanks, were used by Commander Jim Lovell to work out how to perform a vital 'burn' on the way back to Earth. If Commander Lovell had got the sums wrong then it is likely that he and his fellow astronauts, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, would have perished in space.
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The notes were used by Jim Lovell to work out how to perform a vital 'burn'
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They are expected to fetch £60,000 at auction in New York
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If Lovell had got the sums wrong the astronauts would probably have died
As the crippled spacecraft's navigation equipment was not working correctly the commander used the @placeholder as a reference point.