*THIS IS REAL?!* Apollo 13 (1995) Reaction: FIRST TIME WATCHING
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THIS IS REAL?! Apollo 13 (1995) Reaction: FIRST TIME WATCHING
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I'm sure others have already said so in the comments, but at the very end of the movie, 48:57, Tom Hanks, playing Jim Lovell, is shaking hands with the real Jim Lovell, retired by then of course.
Jim is still with us, he's currently 95 years old.
Unfortunately, Marilyn Lovell died last August 27, 2023. Don't know the cause of death. She was 93. Btw, she did get her wedding ring back.
Also Frank Borman died last November 7,2023. He was the commander of the Apollo 8 flight to orbit the moon Christmas Eve 1968 with Jim Lovell.Tragecally Bill Anders was recently killed in a plane crash at age 90. He was the third member of Apollo 8. I will never forget them taking turns reading from the book of Genesis on live television Christmas Eve.,1968.
Apollo 13 was a very tense moment for days with me. It was intense for millions of people around the world. Thank God they made it back. Jim Lovell is the oldest living astronaut at 95.
@@GGE47 Ken Mattingly died 31th October 2023 😔
I didn't know that Marylin passed out too 😔
On the day that the Apollo mission returned to Earth my town closed down schools and businesses and everyone was home watching this (or at church) praying for their safety.
1970 was a very different time
The schools in my town closed for the day, too. I remember this day vividly.
Very different -- for most of 1970 I didn't exist.
I think the world would be just as transfixed if something like this happened today. Even something as trivial as the disappearance of the Titan submersible grabbed an awful lot of attention.
@@ariochivYeah, we’re going back to the moon in the next 10 or so years. I can almost guarantee the world will once again be transfixed.
@@goldenageofdinosaurs7192 Maybe if something goes wrong like this mission. I think people are more interested in firsts. Humans landing on Mars would probably do it though.
I noticed you kept saying "how did they not think of that ?"
The answer is quite simple : To go to the Moon, they used the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) but to land on the Moon, the astronauts would use the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). Due to technical issues on Appollo 13, the CSM wasn't operationnal so they had to go to the LEM. But the LEM was designed to land on the moon, not to travel in space. Also the LEM was designed for 2 poeple, (the third astronaut would stay in the CSM waiting for the other 2 to come back). But because the CSM was smashed, they had to go to the LEM all 3. That's why they had oxygene issues.
And perhaps more importantly, they were made by different companies, with no standardization for space travel.
Well you got it a bit mixed up here. That is why they had the CO2 issues not the oxygen issues. The oxygen issues were due to the fact that they lost all of the contents of both O2 bottles.
the same question arose when people brought up the lighting of the LEM engine for course correction... many were like "I mean, it's a rocket! It'll thrust!".
yeah, no, it will not "just" thrust solely because of the fact that it's a rocket... if it was designed to operate under _some_ gravity, like that of the moon, it may have it's systems rigged to work with pressure... you know, as you would have under gravity?
if you don't have gravity in wide open space, you have no pressure on the pipes, the fuel doesn't run, you have no ignition, and the rocket doesn't fire!
@@bcn1gh7h4wk Well descending to the moon or orbiting the moon isn't really going to have any difference to a rocket engine, you will be in freefall either way until you actually touch something (the ground in this case) really a decent path to the moon is just an orbit that happens to intersect the ground. Pressure on the pipes from an outside source for a rocket would only happen if you are changing velocity from hitting atmosphere, already thrusting or having the ground stop you from continuing your orbit of the large bodies centre of gravity.
Since the decent engine of the lunar lander was designed to change the lander orbit from circular to one intersecting the ground and then perform a powered landing it absolutely would have to work in freefall which is why pressure was provided by compressed helium.
@@bcn1gh7h4wk You don't know what you're talking about. there's a vacuum on the moon, like the same vacuum in space. It's a hypergolic engine; gas pick up at the inlet is only a problem for a second, and then it's under gravity. That's how the engineers "rig" it.
So I adore weird nasa history. Here’s a fun Apollo 13 fact: in 1969 (year of apollo 11) a problem in the LM (lander) guidance system was identified. One of the LM engineers corrected the problem from her hospital bed when she was in labor. That corrected system is what saved the Apollo 13 crew. And the woman gave birth to a baby boy… Jack Black. Yes, that jack black.
i had to look that up just to see. thats pretty wild. lol
Are you saying she corrected it *for* the Apollo 11 mission or after it was identified during that mission. Because Apollo was in July and Jack Black was born August 28 in California.
This is such a cool fun fact wow!
No shot! I don't think I knew the Black Jack part.
@@Ernwaldosome one who dont belives every bs people say and takes the time to just google for 1min. You are a hero.
11:54, Many Apollo astronaut marriages didn’t survive the program. Jim and his wife Marilyn went the distance. She passed way in August 2023 after over 70 years of marriage.
But she did get her wedding ring from the motel shower!
Many probably failed because it was very stressful for their wives and families. Other probably failed because astronauts were looked at like Rock Stars. I'm sure there were a lot of women throwing themselves at the astronauts making it hard to stay faithful.
@@laudanum669 Check out the movie The Right Stuff. There are several scenes that show this rockstar side to being an astronaut
@@laudanum669 The DVD version of Apollo 13 includes a commentary track featuring the real Jim and Marilyn Lovell, and from how they talk it's clear just how strong their marriage still was decades after the incident. They truly did love each other.
@@laudanum669Yeah no, it's a common fact that the majority of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were blatantly cheating on their wives, which is why most of said wives left them. And they'd been doing it from the start; most of them were originally Air Force pilots, and would see their wives for maybe two weeks in a year, so they just... did whatever, and that was normal for them. Like, at the press conference where the Mercury Seven were introduced to the world, at one point a reporter asked how their wives felt about them risking their lives like that... and the response was six men staring in confused shock, as they'd never considered that their wives might have feelings.
The exception, John Glenn, was the only one of the seven from the Navy, and also one of the few to not get divorced; he actually had to sit the other six down for a talk about how they're all famous American heroes, so the other should stop having public sex with every woman that looks at them. He didn't tell them to stop cheating on their wives, just to at least pretend to be hiding it. The other six never forgave him for this, and forced Glenn out of NASA after his one Mercury flight.
This is very real except for the astronauts freaking out and arguing, that was artistic license to add drama; you don't get to be picked to do this job unless you can be completely cool under pressure.
Marilyn Lovell is played by Kathleen Quinlan, she received an Academy Award nomination for this part.
Some excellent movies about the space race are: The Right Stuff (1983), October Sky (1999), Hidden Figures (2016).
When Armstrong landed on the Moon in 1969 my then boyfriend and I went over to my parent's house and watched it on the tv. Then we went outside and looked up at the moon and commented, "Wow, someone is up there walking around right now ... amazing."
It's still an intense movie, even when the outcome is known.
And don't forget the wonderful mini-series about the Apollo Program, "From the Earth to the Moon." Highly recommend it!
Yeah, I know. Listening to the audio tapes from when the explosion happened? It is like "oh, this happened" "this isn't right", "Houston, now what?". It's like nothing even happened.
Thank you for clarifying about the true event! And I love hearing about your experience during the moon landing, as someone who has only seen clips/ movie scenes about the event, it's awesome to hear a first hand account!
It probably took longer than normal because, if you recall, they were coming in shallow, so they spent more time coming down as they were covering more distance.
Yep, the key line is when the one chap says "flight, they're still shallowing up there, do you want to tell them?" It's almost completely brushed over, but it explains the extended blackout. I'm fairly sure in the real events, the people at mission control would have known that so would have expected the longer blackout, even if the public did not know.
The actual reason it took so long for the astronauts to communicate was that they were worried about the amount of power they had available. They didn't want to risk using up the battery and not having power to deploy the parachutes, so they waited to talk to Houston until they were sure they were going to land safely. Despite doing everything right up to that point, they neglected to warn Houston that they were going to do that.
@@paulcooper3611 Cool Thanx!
@@paulcooper3611 I could see doing that.
Can they help us? No. So why waste power talking to them until we are absolutely sure we have enough power for things that CAN help us, like parachutes. Parachutes would be very helpful.
This is like when my boss calls and I'm busy, lol. I'll talk to him later.
@paulcooper3611 Do you have a source for that information? I believe it, I'd just like to be able to point to an authoritative source.
I was nine years old when this actually happened, and I remember it very well. The final part where they take closer to 5 minutes before there is any communication is exactly as I remember it. I remember even at the time I was confused as to why it took so long, because I also remember that the picture of the spacecraft coming down with chutes open showed up on the TV almost simultaneously with the radio communication (just as they show in the movie). Even then I understood to some degree that the reason for the blackout was related to the intense heat generated at the heat shield during reentry. (Now I know that as a result of the heat a plasma forms around the spacecraft which the radio waves can't penetrate.) But if the chutes were deployed into that kind of high temperature environment they'd burn up. The craft has to slow down to well below that speed before the chutes can be deployed. It wasn't until maybe a year or so ago that I read where someone explained that they waited until the chutes deployed in case the power was needed for that. This explanation makes perfect sense to me and I'm pretty sure it's right. But I still prefer my previous best explanation: It was a giant practical joke played by the astronauts on the entire world!
Everything in this movie was real except for the astronauts arguing. That was added for drama. A lot of the other lines were word for word what was actually said.
I'll be honest, I never bought into that they never argued like it was the movie. I mean, I don't think it was like in the movie, but to think these 3 human beings stuck in an impossible scary situation, they Didn't let their emotions get the best of them....not once🤨not believable, in my opinion. What I believe happened is they cover it up as they should. They don't want neither of these 3 guys looking bad.😮
Real events, but everything was dramatised quite heavily. Understandable, because if they showed it how it *really* was, it would make for a really boring movie!
I don't know about the other characters, but I know they did Swigert really dirty in the movie. He was actually the most familiar with all the safety measures in Apollo 13 (because he actively DEVELOPED those measures!), and the other two sure were glad that he was on board.
@@Danisachan His character was bent a little for the sake of drama. Actually I think they did an outstanding job with Swigert. He is not presented as an incompetent but as the "outsider" in the group. When he messes up the training, a technician says that even Mattingly did the same error before. And later in the movie he is the only that figures that the trajectory is off. More importantly, his redemption arc was very satisfying: he gains the respect of the others, and in a movie that presents pretty static characters, he is actually the only that grows and improves in the course of the narration. Not realistic, but not disrespectful. We must keep in mind that is not a documentary.
I talked to Fred Haise once as a kid. He said their depiction of him getting sick was really overexaggerated, and they never would've stripped off their bio monitors. He had a kidney infection, so it just hurt.
Ya know you’ve got a great movie when people who know the outcome still find this movie exciting.
Every time!😂
48:57 - that man dressed as the senior navel officer, who is supposed to be congratulating Tom Hanks, is the real Jim Lovell.
The costume department offered to make him an Admiral's uniform, but he said no thanks. "I retired a Captain, and a Captain I'll be".
Naval. Unless he was handing out free oranges. 😋
@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t really have to respect that. Jim Lovell has gotta be in my list of top 3 favorite astronauts.
His wife Marylin also had a Cameo appearance.
@@curtismartin2866 hehehe
The actress who played Jim Lovell's mom in the rest home, was actually Ron Howard's mom. And the actor who played the priest sitting with the Lovell family at the end was Ron Howard's dad.
and Ron Howard's little brother,Clint was one of the specialists in Mission Control
Ron Howard makes sure his family gets paid. Good on him.
@@technofilejr3401 of course it helps that his family are really good at what they do.
The senator complaining to Jim about his state paying for moon missions that are already obsolete is Roger Corman, who gave tons of famous directors their first shot at directing (from Francis Ford Coppola to Martin Scorsese). He also produced the first movie Ron Howard directed, GRAND THEFT AUTO.
Ron Howard actually made his mom audition because he didn't want to seem biased. While his mom did a good job, Ron was like, "I don't know, Mom. You still look a little too young." His mom then took her dentures out and said, "How about this?" Ron laughed and said, "Okay Mom you got the job."
There's recordings of the actual Apollo 13 crew during this crisis. They were cool as cucumbers throughout the whole ordeal. You don't get to be an astronaut unless you're a Chad.
Listening the recordings from the LEM during the lunar landing in the Apollo 11 mission, you would never guess from the tone of voice that they were in imminent danger of running out of fuel and crashing as they desperately searched for a place to land because the designated landing site was unusable due to it being covered with boulders.
Second City Television (SCTV) did a hilarious skit where budget cuts forced NASA and the National Endowment for the Arts to pool their resources, and they put on a performance of the play "Murder in the Cathedral" performed by astronauts wearing monks robes over their spacesuits and helmets and reciting the dramatic dialogue it the emotionless monotone that astronauts are known for.
The Apollo astronauts were drawn almost exclusively from military test pilots. Only Buzz Aldrin had never flown as a test pilot (though he was an experienced combat pilot, with 66 missions and 2 confirmed air-to-air kills during the Korean War), but that condition was waived for him since he had a doctorate from MIT, with a thesis titled "Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous", which was felt more than made up it.
There actually is a minor blow up but nothing as dramatic as in the film.
Umm you forgot brilliant with stellar character
BTW, there's a hilarious NASA recording of astronauts literally on the moon complaining about farting from drinking too much citrus.
Yes, they did indeed broadcast all of this. We watched the re-entry broadcasts all day in school (I was in elementary school) and our teachers discussed all the events with us so that we understood. I remember knowing that they might glance off the Earth's atmosphere and go back out into space and never get back. When they landed in the ocean, you could hear the entire school cheering.
It's crazy to think what they accomplished during the Apollo missions with literal building sized computers that could only do a tiny fraction of what your cell phone is capable of.
A detail many younger people do not understand is that the engineers at NASA are doing many of their calculations using slide rules.
I think the comparison of Apollo computers were the computation level of pocket calculators.
@@pavanbiliyar But programmable calculators, which is an important difference. 2 K of working memory (RAM), 15 bit registers, and 32 K of stored program (ROM). Two million clock ticks per second. It was an elegant design in a lot of respects. All made of a single kind of logic gate (NOR, four NOR gates to a chip). To prevent arithmetic overflow and underflow on multiplication and division, numbers were represented as greater than zero and less than one. One of the programming leads, Margaret Hamilton, mathematically proved that the computer could never be put in a state that it couldn't recover from (unless physically damaged). We tend to laugh at those paltry specifications, but of course all that industrial development led to what we have now, and the 1960s are still within living memory for millions. Some young genius has actually found and restored surviving examples of the AGC hardware to the point where they can be fed live data that simulates the data the computers would receive during the missions, so the old computers "think" they're actually doing entire Apollo missions as they did 50 years ago. It's all on CZcams and incredibly fascinating.
@@TedLittle-yp7ujSadly, most younger people probably don’t know what a slide rule even is.
this is a lie. The supercomputers used rooms of computers like at NORAD and they had enough to process satellite information, work through scenarios. Your phone cant do what those trillion dollar IBM computers could do back then. You think Fort Meade has cell phones processing all cell calls scanning for key words? get over yourself
As far as accuracy goes: I don't know about the other characters, but I know they did Swigert really dirty in this adaptation. He was actually the most familiar with all the safety measures in Apollo 13 (because he actively DEVELOPED those measures!), and the other two sure were glad that he was on board at this time in history.
It always seems with this movie that the stuff they changed for dramatic effect turns out to be less interesting and dramatic than the actual events. Not to knock the film, overall, I think it's great, which makes the one or two clunky things about it really stand out.
Facts. I mentioned it in my post as well. They really did Jack dirty in this one.
The Apollo 1 fire that killed all 3 astronauts happened while the rocket was sitting on the launchpad…a spark occurred inside and they were operating with a pure 100% oxygen atmosphere….the fire spread throughout the cabin very quickly and bc of the design of the hatch they couldn’t just open it quickly to get out….it took a few minutes to open. It was redesigned after that and they made everything more fire resistant inside as well….all the materials inside made fire resistant I mean. Also, right after they did their tv broadcast (that the networks dumped) Mission Control told them they had some “routine house cleaning” for them to do…one of those was to “stir the oxygen tanks” …when he hit the switch to do that that is when everything went to shit…some kind of electrical short that caused the explosion. Y’all were talking when Mission Control told them to do that so you missed that part. And about the CO2 scrubbers and only having enough oxygen for 2 people…they are in the lunar module and it was meant to go down to the moon with 2 astronauts in it while the other astronaut stays in orbit in the other craft. And it really did take them longer than 3 minutes to go through the comm blackout on re-entry bc their re-entry angle was still a little bit shallow so it took a little longer to go through the blackout.
A complete irony about Apollo 1 is the door in a previous mission had blew too early. They fixed it for Apollo 1. If they hadn't the door would have blown and the astronauts would have gotten out or at least had a chance.
@@andromeda331 are you referring to that Mercury capsule hatch blowing? Another irony is that was Gus Grissom who was piloting that Mercury mission when the hatch blew after it landed in the ocean and it filled with water and sank to the bottom of the ocean…he got out of course….the irony is…Gus was one of the 3 astronauts killed in the Apollo 1 fire. There was nothing wrong with the hatch blowing on the Mercury capsule….that’s what it was designed to do….it’s just that it blew prematurely before the recovery helicopter had gotten hooked up to it….some say that Gus panicked and blew the hatch himself to get out of the capsule…after the water started pouring in it got too heavy for the helicopter to pick it up…
@@jamesmoore4003 Yes. I didn't know that Gus was one piloting it.
The reason the for malfunctioning was a misplaced fitting that happened 2 years before the module was launched.
Also, it wasn't the amount of time it took to open the door, it was the fact that it opened inward. Once the fire started, the pressure went way up, and there was no way they could physically pull on the door hard enough to open it. After that, they redesigned the hatch to open outward.
I don't know if Armstrong and Aldrin actually sat with Jim's mother during the media frenzy, but it wouldn't have been that big a deal, because the astronauts all knew each other. They worked together and many were neighbors because there was a subdivision in Houston built specifically for the astronauts and their families. That's why in the moon landing scene, Jim laughs at the idea of Neil Armstrong's name going down in history, because to him he was just Neil from work!
Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins have died but Buzz Aldrin is alive and kicking, literally. I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed alive another 50 years. He actually punched a guy who said the moon landing was fake.
They actually did. The movie itself is based on the book “Lost Moon” written by Jim Lovell himself. And in a paperback version there’s a picture of not only Armstrong and Aldrin with Lovell’s mom, but also one of the Apollo 12 astronauts as well.
It's important to remember that 1000's of people worked for years preparing for each of these missions, and astronauts trained for years for a single opportunity to fly in space. Canceling a mission wasn't just a disappointment. It was missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
“Steely eyed missile man” was the ultimate complement that could be given to a civilian working behind the scenes at NASA.
There weren't many who got that moniker in real life. Werner von Braun. Chris Kraft, the first NASA flight director. Gene Kranz. John Aaron, who got the moniker in saving Apollo 12 from an abort during launch, and solidified it by coming up with the power-up plan for the CSM on 13. Those are all the ones I know about. I dunno if the engineer who came up with the CO2 rig got that moniker in real life, but I wouldn't be against him having it, as he saved the astronauts' lives.
Apollo 13 had a longer ionization blackout because they did a PC+2 burn that sped their free return trajectory to the Earth. Because they got back to Earth at a higher speed they had to reenter at a shallower angle so they could slow down sufficiently while still in the higher atmosphere to avoid overheating and overstressing the Command Module with too much velocity in the thicker atmosphere. At the wrong entry angle you could skip out of the atmosphere or crash into the ground at hypersonic speeds assuming you did not burn up first, so they need a pretty accurate entry angle that is dependent on velocity to get it just right. The Guidance Office and Flight Controller would certainly have known they would have an extended blackout however it was still 33 seconds longer than predicted. Also remember the power was low so to give the parachute warmers and pyrotechnics the best chance they turned off the radios once in blackout and did not turn them on again until after the mains deployed making them more like 2 minutes overdue to check in via radio, so it is accurate that they saw the chutes opening on TV at nearly the same instant Lovell checked in via radio.
That wasn't the only factor. It's suspected that the cooling system of the LM caused a very tiny propulsion, not enough for the crew to recognize, but enough to very gradually push the craft off course over a matter of days. During a normal mission, that cooling system isn't powered on for very long, and for most of that time the LM is separated from the CSM, generally sitting on the Moon (where the tiny vent would not even disturb the lunar regolith, let alone move the spacecraft). So there wasn't really an opportunity to notice the effect before.
@@MarsJenkar Its not hard to picture that at all. In the movie they show the crew being told they can no longer expel urine bags overboard. Cooling systems would sublimate water to reject heat, even atmosphere in the capsules would leak and be replenished by stored gasses, and cryogenic tanks have to vent off due to vapor pressure as their contents heat and boil off. In a normally functioning spacecraft the guidance computer and inertial navigation systems would detect and correct orientation, speed, and trajectory with thrusters but with all their guidance turned off they were truly adrift and at the whims of every vented gas from the spacecraft. Even a few meters per second of Dv can have huge impacts early in a flight path.
@@larrybremer4930 The major thing about the cooling system was that it was almost _constantly_ on, which meant that the effect of the tiny vent added up over time. This manifested as a very gradual shallowing that wasn't noticed at first, until the difference became too big to ignore.
Even after the corrective burn, the tiny vent continued to gradually push the craft back off course. In the actual mission, it resulted in the astronauts doing a later burn using the LM's maneuvering jets, something which wasn't depicted in the film.
If you would like to learn more about the 1960's Space Program there are some other great shows to watch.
The Right Stuff (1983 - Covers early space program from first Supersonic flights to first orbital flights.)
From the Earth to the Moon (TV Mini Series 1998 - similar in tone to Apollo 13, Each episode on different subtopics about the Apollo mission)
Hidden Figures (2016 - Covers the black female calculators who played a significant role in the space program.)
There's also a nice documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon (2007), and then the same team made a mini-series for the technological side of the flights, Moon Machines (2008) - it covers the Saturn V rocket, the Lunar and the Command Modules, the spacesuits, the flight computer and the LRV rover, "the first car on the Moon".
The Dish (2000 aussie comedy drama) is a great one to add to the list, about the radio telescope in Australia used to relay communications with the Apollo 11 crew and how they nearly didn't get the video footage from the landing.
This movie also has a very nice audio commentary with Jim and Marion Lovell. I'm not really sure where to find it other than the DVD, but if you can find it, I recommend listening to it.
@@BadlyHonedBytes love that one!
"First Man" (2018) about the Apollo11 Mission is pretty good too.
28:00, Fun fact by being on the Apollo 8 mission, Jim Lovell and his teammates were the first people to orbit the moon. He and his teammates also became the first human beings to see the Earth rise above the moon. So even without actually landing on the moon Lovell already secured his place in history.
That is why Fred Haise and Jack Swigert were so honored to fly with him.
8:30 Marilyn Lovell is played by Kathleen Quinlan. This is certainly her highest-profile role - she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress - but she’s got over 100 credits on IMDB, going back to “American Graffiti” in 1973.
29:18 The guy speaking here - who’s been ominously quiet while sitting in the background in some of the previous scenes - is John Aaron, who was already a legend in NASA for saving the Apollo 12 mission when the craft was struck by lightning during launch. That’s a big reason why Gene Kranz pretty much accepted what he said as holy writ. Aaron was also a big part of putting together the startup sequence that figures so prominently later on.
34:55 “Steely-eyed missile man” is a high compliment in NASA. It’s been around for a while, and was famously applied to John Aaron in that Apollo 12 incident I mentioned earlier. It’s also used for Rich Purnell in “The Martian.”
I read “steely-eyed missile man” and immediately thought of The Martian 🥰🥰 I love that movie so much
13:21 Gene Kranz’s wife sewed a vest for him for each mission. Some were more stylish than others. The Apollo 13 vest was quite nice, as we see.
It occurs to me that the Mission Control building in Houston Texas probably had powerful state of the art air conditioning (just to keep the computers cold) and so you might well want to wear a vest inside that room to stay warm.
Actually, there were two more changes from the actual events. First of all, it wasn't a "team" that came up with the solution for the air filters. It was one engineer who figured it out on his way to work. Also, it wasn't just Ken in the simulator; they had several teams working out the restart procedure.
They had figured that out for a previous Apollo flight.
Nick, you asked about the cause of the Apollo 1 fire that killed all three astronauts. The ignition source of the fire was determined to be electrical, and the fire spread rapidly due to combustible nylon material and the high-pressure pure oxygen cabin atmosphere. Rescue was prevented by the plug door hatch, which could not be opened against the internal pressure of the cabin. Because the rocket was unfueled, the test had not been considered hazardous, and emergency preparedness for it was poor.
The inner hatch cover used a plug door design, sealed by higher pressure inside the cabin than outside. The normal pressure level used for launch (2 psi above ambient) created sufficient force to prevent removing the cover until the excess pressure was vented. Emergency procedure called for Grissom to open the cabin vent valve first, but Grissom was prevented from doing this because the valve was located behind the wall of flames. Also, while the system could easily vent the normal pressure, its flow capacity was utterly incapable of handling the rapid increase to 29 psi caused by the heat of the fire. In other words, it couldn't vent the excess pressure fast enough. So, the astronauts weren't able to get the door open, and died of a heart attack caused by carbon monoxide inhalation. (The burns happened post-mortem.)
A lot of things were changed after the fire. The cabin atmosphere at launch was reduced to 60% oxygen/40% nitrogen at sea level pressure (14.7 psi), which would be vented down to 5 psi after launch. Nylon used in the Block I suits was replaced in the Block II suits with Beta cloth, a _non-flammable,_ highly melt-resistant fabric woven from fiberglass and coated with Teflon. The door was completely redesigned to open outwards, with a cartridge of pressurized nitrogen to power the release system in an emergency, instead of explosive bolts. Flammable materials in the cabin were replaced with self-extinguishing versions. Plumbing and wiring were covered with protective insulation. Aluminum tubing was replaced with stainless steel tubing that used brazed joints when possible.
Thank you for this!
I remember the first time I watched it. I was holding my breath from the launch until the credits rolled. And even now, 20 years later, i still hold my breath when the launch occurs.
I know it had to be done, because in a two hour movie the timeline has to be very compressed, but the way the movie was presented makes it appear that Gene Kranz was the only flight director throughout the entire mission. There were actually three others, working in shifts. Gene Kranz was on shift when the explosion happened, but by the time the astronauts shut down the Command Module and moved into the Lunar Module, the Flight was being directed by Glenn Lunney. Milton Windler was the third flight director, and Gerry Griffin the fourth, and all of them coordinated several other important events that are depicted as being under Kranz. Griffen, Windler and Kranz are still with us, Lunney passed in 2021. All four received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their efforts in enabling the survival and return of the astronauts of Apollo 13.
Glynn Lunney, not Glenn. :)
I remember this event even though I was just 9 years old. The whole country was glued to the tv-and Walter Cronkite of CBS, was like the nations dad, keeping us up to date on the continuing events. As young as I was, I understood the gravity of the whole situation as just a year before, we landed on the moon for the first time.
For an added perspective, look up the BBC coverage of Apollo 13's reentry & splashdown. You can see the commentators silently and anxiously waiting for the blackout to end, with science correspondent James Burke literally crossing his fingers. And their happiness when the capsule safely splashes down is wonderful.
I was 10 and remember watching all of the Apollo 13 news updates. I don’t recall if it was shown in the classrooms.
Big fan, and I really love your reactions! Really happy that you decided to watch this! Okay, here goes an Apollo Spacecraft/Apollo 13 history lesson. First, they did have a backup oxygen tank, but it was sitting next to the one that blew up. The Apollo Command/Service Module stack, known in NASA parlance as the CSM, was powered by a device called a fuel cell. You take oxygen and hydrogen, feed it into the fuel cell and it makes three things, electricity, heat, and water. It provided 24 volts of power to run all of the necessary systems on the CSM. The Command Module, when it separated from the Service Module had batteries to provide the power requirements during reentry. Now originally, all the systems on the CSM only ran on 24 volts, but the launch tower had 65 volts run to that. To not have a problem of damaging any of the systems on the CSM, they modified many of the systems to run on 65 volts while it was being prepped for launch, and would only switch when the launch vehicle was fueled and ready to launch. And they changed almost every system. One thing that slipped through the engineering cracks was a solenoid on the oxygen tank heater. A solenoid is an electrically activated switch. These twin oxygen tanks were mounted in a single rack, and when they were doing the changes, they pulled these racks one at a time to make the changes, and then replace it with one that had been already modified. When they pulled this particular one, one of the techs didn't remove one of the bolts all the way and when it let go, it bounced off the top of the compartment that it was in, crimping the drain line. this damage went unnoticed, and the rack was modified and installed into the spacecraft that would become Apollo 13. As part of the testing to make sure the launch vehicle can handle the mission, the fill up every consumable to check for leaks. After verifying that everything works, they drain it all. And everything emptied, except for that oxygen tank. As they weren't sure what the problem was they called in Ken Mattingly, because at the time he was the mission CSM pilot. He decided to use the heater and boil of the oxygen through the safety valve. When they engaged the heater the 65 volts went through the 24 volt solenoid and welded it closed. This allowed the heater to run away. The oxygen tank held what was known as supercritical oxygen. It's so cold that it was a kind of slush, which is at a temperature is -297 degrees F. Now the temperature on the gage went to 80 degrees F at the upper end, a difference of almost 400 degrees, so they never thought that it could get anywhere near that warm, but with the heater welded on, the temperature inside the tank reached over 1000 degrees F! To insulate the various wires that passed through the tank, they were all covered with teflon, which was low temperature stable and didn't react with oxygen. At the high temperatures inside the tank, it baked all the teflon off of all the wires, and that oxygen tank was a ticking time bomb. When Jack Swigert stirred the oxygen tanks, a routine thing that allowed for a proper pressure gage reading of the tanks, an electrical arc from the fan ignited the oxygen, blowing up the tank and causing a leak in the spare tank. After the mission, they figured out the line of failures that led to the disaster, and installed a third oxygen tank on the opposite side of the Service Module, and further modified the electrical systems in the existing and following spacecraft to handle 65 volt ground power. Sorry this turned into a book, but manned spaceflight has been a passion of mine since I watched Neil and Buzz do their walk around the Sea of Tranquility when I was five.
I understood all that. Thanks for providing that level of detail.
It's hard for most people to really understand that every mission into space has been "experimental." They're always learning something new, and it's never "routine."
Spoken like a true engineer!! Thank you!
The number 13 recurred several times during the Apollo 13 mission. But, when you think about it, Apollo 13 turned out to be extremely lucky. If that explosion had occurred at ANY other time, the crew would have died without question. That it happened when it did, when the as-yet-unused LEM was docked and available, is what saved them.
That Mattingly was left behind also proved to be a lucky break. He was acknowledged as being THE expert in many of the Apollo systems, so having his input for solving problems proved invaluable.
That wasn’t the only piece of lucky timing. The centre engine on the 2nd stage cutting out when it did was also fortunate. Apparently, it had feed problems & started pogoing (bouncing up & down) if the propellant lines had not broken, it has been calculated that in a few more bounces the engine would have broken through its supports. This would have been nasty on the down bounce; on the up bounce it would have sent the engine through the rocket!
@@chrissouthgate4554 Interesting. I did not know that one.
33:39 He did the calculations for two people because he was in charge of the LEM and the LEM was designed for two people, not for three. He did that "on autopilot" because of training. By the way, the CO2 cartridges were different because the command module and the lunar module were designed and built by different companies. Exceptionally complicated machines, built to do something never attempted before: a manned mission to the Moon. Some shortcoming in a complex system is inevitable.
The Navy Captain that shakes Tom Hanks hand at the end was the real Jim Lovell.
They went public because even back in the 60's-70's you still had nerds who would pick up the same radio signal from them talking back and forth.. You as NASA would rather be the one announcing it..
Another reason for keeping the public informed was that the American space programme was used as promotion of the "American way of life" in contrast to the Soviet Union's cult of secrecy. The USSR did not even announce that they were going to do a mission until it was over and successful.
That is such an important point to bring up when one encounters a moon hoaxer. There are old people out there who still have recordings from antennas they themselves designed and pointed at the spacecraft. Tell one of those radio amateurs that those signals were faked, they'll laugh in your face.
15:26 the center engine of the rocket (called J-2 engine) was automatically shut down a couple of minutes early, due to excessive vibrations (called "pogo oscillations"), leaving the rocket with only 4 engines instead of 5. There was anyway sufficient thrust margin to make to the parking orbit, so the mission was not endangered.
Another Apollo flight (Apollo 6, an unmanned test) was plagued by severe pogo oscillations.
"The terror of floating in space" Watch Gravity 😊
"This movie should have been called "Angular Momentum" -- Neil Degrasse Tyson, tweeting from the theater while watching Gravity.
I remember when they landed on the moon, my parents let me stay up and watch it on our black and white TV. I also remember the events of Apollo 13, everyone was watching every time a report came on. Most of what you saw is how it happened. The news broadcast you saw were real ones from the time, I remember seeing them. Great reaction by you guys.
I was allowed to stay up as long as I wanted to watch Apollo 11 land, though I was only 10 and it was a school night. But I was too tired to wait for them to walk on the moon, I went to bed to listen on my radio but fell asleep.
I'm so glad you got to this so quickly, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it❤❤ At the very end, when they are on the aircraft carrier, Tom Hanks shakes hands with the older Captain. That is the real Jim Lovell! This movie is also based off the book Jim Lovell wrote called "Lost Moon" 🚀🚀
Back in 1970, we were so relieved when we saw the parachutes and Command Module coming down to the ocean. I was so glad the Astronauts survived.
Paul was the one to initially announce the Beatles breaking up, so most of the blame was put on him at the time.
Which astronaut on the Apollo 13 mission was named Paul?
I was 9 when Apollo XIII flew. Back then we had favorite astronauts the way kids have favorite sports heros. Mine was Ed White who died in the Apollo I fire. Gemini & Apollo flights were televised by all networks until the 1st moon landing. There was a definite sharp drop off of interest once we first landed on the moon. I went to Catholic school and once the accident happened we had daily mass dedicated to the astronauts. I was in my 30's when I saw the movie in the theater. I was shocked at how strong my emotions returned to me while watching the film.
I was on a fishing trip n Canada when the moon landing happened. We hauled a 60s TV to watch it. We ran a wire to the roof of the cabin for an antenna. We set the TV on a stump around the camp fire and everyone there came to watch. One of the best memories I have.
7:39 The Apollo 1 fire was caused by an electrical short setting fire to some teflon insulation. Even though teflon is normally considered to be flame resistant, the fact that they were using a 100% oxygen atmosphere meant it burned anyway.
16:45 Space sickness. It's basically motion sickness, but way worse. About 70% of astronauts get it their first time in space, _and_ their first time coming back to Earth and re-adapting to gravity.
17:25 They can back off and try again, as long as they have enough thruster fuel and haven't collided and damaged something.
18:14 PTC: Passive Thermal Control. Basically a very slow roll (about 1 RPM) so you don't have one side of the ship constantly facing the sun and overheating.
20:14 He opened the Cabin Repressurization Valve. With the hatch open, that valve does nothing but make a loud bang that jumpscares the other two astronauts.
31:20 The Command Module and the Lunar Module were designed and built by different government contractors, that didn't share notes except for the docking mechanism.
33:31 The LEM was only ever supposed to have two people in it, so all the numbers in his flight manual assumed two people.
44:51 No, that was real. He'd had a nightmare in his last sleep period about that, and got real paranoid about accidentally hitting the wrong switch.
47:27 That actually wasn't a dramatization. Apollo 13 actually took 4 minutes and 15 seconds to emerge from reentry blackout, the longest of any Apollo mission.
The LEM (lunar excursion module) that the three astronauts used as a lifeboat produced about 1710 watts of power. So when one of the engineers said they had about enough to power a coffeemaker it was not hugely off. To put it in perspective,
Average Appliance Estimated Wattage
Coffee Maker 600-1200
Microwave 1000-2000
Toaster 800-1500
Hair Dryer 1000-1875
Vacuum Cleaner 300-1500
That's crazy, thanks so much for breaking this down!
@@nickreacts6394 one of the charms of this movie is that the power problem that drives much of the plot isn't some far-out scientific idea that might be hard for a general audience to grasp, but the most basic kind of electrical problem, familiar to anyone who has ever tripped a circuit breaker or had to deal with a failing battery. It really was just that simple.
Gene's vests were made specifically for each mission by his wife. They became a good luck charm looked for by the mission control crew.
I'm old enough to remember watching this as it occured. All of the TV news clips were the actual news clips
One thing I haven't seen mentioned in any of the comments sections is that the man sharing the screen with news icon Walter Cronkite is another Walter - Wally Schirra, one of the original Mercury astronauts who, as backup commander for the ill-fated crew of Apollo 1, went on to command the 1st Apollo flight; and who some years earlier had performed the first orbital rendezvous after a VERY dicey liftoff.
If you're ever in Kansas, where it currently is, you should go and see the ship. It is pretty cool to see a piece of history like that. This was one of those movies where everyone burst out clapping when they came floating into view with their parachutes. Everyone was so invested.
Being able to fit a super computer in one room was a big deal at the time. They used to take up whole floors of buildings. Sometimes more than one floor. Now your laptop has more computing power than one of those. Probably your phone, too. That's how far we've come. I was born the year Apollo 13 launched, so all of this computer stuff, from the super computer, to powerful laptops and handheld devices has occurred just in my lifetime. It has been amazing to watch as the tech ticks by. I'm sure brain interfaces will be next. But I digress.
This was another fantastic movie choice and I enjoyed your reaction very much.
I grew up in Florida during the 1970’s and 80’s. Many of these guys were household names especially Ken Mattingly who flew on the Space Shuttle.
Admiral Mattingly passed away on Halloween 2023.
The "thing" that flew off the top of the capsule shortly after launch was nominal. It was installed as an emergency "exit" (sort of a capsule ejection seat) if the rocket failed on take off. It was a small rocket that would lift the capsule away from the rocket. But once they reached a certain point in the flight, it wasn't necessary, because it was designed only to function shortly after take off.
And this is a well-done movie that dramatizes certain things, but I was riveted to my TV as a youngster when this all happened. The entire nation (and the world that had access to media that was primitive by today's standards) was also riveted.
And this was perhaps the best high-tech jury rigging of "stuff" to create a solution to a life-threatening problem in the history of humanity!
33:33 I think he only calculated it for 2 because they had to retreat to the Lunar module which was intended to take only 2 down to the moon while the 3rd astronaut stays on board the main ship, so he was just in the habit of calculating o2 in the lunar module for 2.
The Apollo spacesuit and backpack weighed 180lbs on Earth. On the Moon it weighed about 30lbs.
On the Moon, they had 1/6 the gravity, but of course the suited astronauts had the same mass as they would on Earth, and therefore momentum, as they moved around. Plus, likely a high(er) center of mass from the suit backpacks. So while walking/hopping around was easy, cornering and stopping took practice. There are a few TV camera shots of Apollo astronauts on the Moon losing traction/balance and slo-mo falling over.
Nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture but won for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing.
It lost the Best Picture to BRAVEHEART.
That hurts my heart almost as much as Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare In Love.
@@arkain1 The original Star Wars lost to Annie Hall.
If I remember right, the cause of the Apollo 1 fire was an oversight about the risk of flammability. Some particular material in the capsule was rated to not be flammable under the expected atmospheric pressure during spaceflight, but during the test, the pressure was much higher than that, and under those conditions the material was flammable. The risk was overlooked, and what would normally have been a minor and harmless spark started a fire instead.
The reason the test used higher pressure was because part of what they were testing was that the capsule could handle the appropriate relative pressure between the atmosphere inside and the vacuum of space outside. But since they were testing within Earth's atmosphere, they had to increase the pressure inside the capsule to match the same difference in pressure versus the air outside.
I think there was a higher oxygen content as well - which was amended after the fire....
@@SotonCueManit was only amended at ground level/take off, was still a pure oxygen environment in space, but as it was low pressure it didn’t make things as flammable.
All the weightlessness scenes were filmed on a big airplane in intervals of 23 secs at a time that had a set built on it. The plane dove towards the earth at a certain angle and it simulates Zero-G. Said they took 500 or so takes on this aircraft while filming. People can actually sign up for a "Zero-G" ride with others as an experience today. When this movie came out, McDonalds had a promotional where you could collect or buy a plastic Apollo 13 rocket with sticker decals you put on that was used to hold Pogs. The wife really lost her ring down the drain, but got it back alter.
Thank you! I've always wondered if they shot these scenes in zero gravity or if there was other movie magic involved
Look up Zero-G flights! Same thing, just no set. @@redcactusify2071
@@redcactusify2071There is a 40 minute BTS video on CZcams from the shooting on board of the Vomit Comet (nickname for the parabolic "Zero-G" flight) - if you search for "Apollo 13 - BTS Filming on Vomit Comet" you should find it. Id: 8Kld61n8ZDI
@@redcactusify2071 The astronauts called the plane the "vomit comet."
Other than some of the personal conversations (obviously such as between Lovell and his family), the film is very accurate.
Also while interest had gone down, there was still great interest in missions after the first landing, just that it had diminished somewhat. There was still a lot of coverage, (at least in Canada) and I was glued to the set for every mission broadcast as a teenager. There were also noticeable improvements in the video quality with each successive mission, along with the added scope of the missions (lunar rover vehicle), especially the last few with the camera mounted on the rover and remotely controlled. There were plenty of new things every mission to hold interest.
Watch The Right Stuff. Another great true story about American space and the men that forged ahead as pioneers in the early days.
Also starting Ed Harris--as John Glenn.
The movie Forrest Gump came out in '94, 1 year before this movie. In Forrest Gump LT Dan tells Forrest, "If there's ever a day, you're a shrimp boat captain, that's the day I'm an astronaut."
The actress that played Jim Lovell's mom was actually Ron Howard's real life mom.
For a really interesting addition to this story, actor Jack Black's mom (Judith Love Cohen)was a NASA engineer that worked to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts home. She did this while in the hospital, IN LABOR! She left work to go to the hospital with computer printouts. She called in a solution and announced Jack's birth on the same phone call.
The reason for the Apollo 1 fire was the pure oxygen atmosphere at 14.7psi ( in space, the Apollo capsule used 5-6psi ) plus easily damaged Teflon coated wiring that shorted, and a plug type door that couldn't be opened against the pressure of the fire inside, it was filled with flammable materials that virtually exploded into flame due to the high oxygen pressure.
Excellent reaction! This is one of my favorite movies. I grew up in central Florida and followed the space program closely as a kid in the 1960s an 70s. To answer Nguyen's question, even when you *know* the happy outcome the ending of this film is still very emotional. Keep up the great work, you are a fabulous reaction team. There are lots of good space movies you need to add to your schedule including "2001: A Space Odyssey," "2010: The Year We Make Contact," "The Right Stuff," "First Man," and finally "The Martian" which is not a true story but feels like it could be!
Great reaction! I remember these events very clearly; it was a very tense few days for basically everyone in the country. When the movie came out, of course I already knew the outcome, but it was the precision and verisimilitude that got to me. I later saw a video of the actual Apollo 13 crew giving an interview - and I realized that Kevin Bacon had channeled Jack Swaggart uncannily: even the way his eyelids drooped was precisely the same.
Since most of the conversations between Mission Control and Apollo were recorded, the words were very accurate. Events like the wedding ring going down the drain were told in stories, often in national magazines, by the people involved. This was very documenary. The only thing that was added were things like shouting in the space ship-- they were not blaming anyone.These astronauts were recruited from fighter pilots, with many missions, and many close calls. They knew they might die. "The Right Stuff" is another movie that covers these space crews in an ultra realistic way, but even at an earlier time in the space program.
The real Jim Lovell is the uniformed man Tom Hanks shakes hands with at the end
48:59 the captain shaking Tom Hanks hand is the real Jim Lovell
I remember waiting with bated breath during the radio blackout until they finally made contact again. Even though I had lived through the Apollo 13 crisis and knew how it turned out, when I watched the movie I still felt all the anxiety and tension of the events. Ron Howard did an amazing job.
The line is "had a problem," but Ron Howard thought it would sound like the problem is solved and so changed it to "we have a problem."
My recollection is that the "Houston, we have a problem" misquote had already become a meme, as we'd call it today, so Howard stuck with what people expected. They would have gone "huh?" at an accurate quote.
"Houston, we've had a problem." The verb tense used indicates that a problem occurred and is still ongoing.
There is actually a picture from Apollo 11 where Collins in the Command Module took a photo of the Lunar Module with Buzz and Neil inside and the Earth in the background. The picture has since got the nickname "everyone elsey" because every human alive or ever lived was in the picture except the photographer.
Wow. Just wow. Imagine Collins with his back to the Unknown, taking that photo. That is 2001-level trippy to contemplate.
FAKE!
@@Mal1234567 let me guess, you are a flat earther too.
@@larrybremer4930 The picture does not exist.
@@Mal1234567
You can find it on Google.
I'm a child of the Space Program and Disney World. My dad was an aerospace engineer for Martin-Maretta, later Martin-Lockheed and worked on the Gemini Program, the early Earth orbiters and the Space Shuttle. He also did a bit of tweaking for Disney and worked on the team that invented the FLIR for military targeting equipment. FLIR is available these days for all kinds of video systems but it was brand new then. I was 11 for the Apollo 13 mission. We often went to Cape Kennedy to watch the launches. The Saturn 5 rockets were incredible to see. The only screens I've ever seen do them justice, the flame plumes stretched out so far, were the three large screens attached to each other at the pre show for The Hall of Presidents at Disney World and I-Max screens.
For the only time in my life the entire world was united. People later tried to compare it to 9-11, but there were bad guys in that scenario. For those few days it seemed as if the world had stopped. No one wanted to think about those three men being stranded in orbit, slowly freezing and starving. And just to prove that our WWII and Cold War movies and TV shows taught us something, even us kids wondered if they suicide capsules to chew. Ultimately, it's why the crew went with what they had; burning up was the best of two bad choices.
When a Saturn V launched in Florida, they could pick up the air pressure vibrations at the Lamont-Doherty laboratory, which is north of New York City.
Swaggert actually wrote the emergency proceedures manual for the command module. Lovell said he he did everything right 100% of the time. Also Nasa knew about the co2 problem as soon as they decided to go to the LEM & went to work on the solution immediately.
The scene of adapting the filters led to a TV show called “Junkyard Wars,” in which teams would try to build things using what they could find in said yard (which was of course seeded with useful items).
Still with us:
Jim (just turned 96)
Buzz Aldrin (age 94)
Dick Scott, commander Apollo 15 (92 in June)
Bill Anders (flew Apollo 8 with Jim, age 90)
Fred (age 90)
Charlie Duke (got over the measles and walked on the moon when Ken flew him there for Apollo 16. The youngest person to walk on the moon [age 36 then[, and he's keeping that record, as all the proposed Artemis 3 [now scheduled for September 2026] astronauts will be older. Currently age 88)
Harrison Schmitt, geologist, who walked on the moon on Apollo 17, the only scientist to ever do so. (Age 88)
Jim had a rough 2023, though. Marilyn passed away in September, Ken left us on Halloween, and Frank Borman (Apollo 8 commander) died in November. Wishing Jim all the best to come.
BTW, if you paid attention during the opening credits, you'd see that this is based on Jim's book about the mission. ("Lost Moon") So that was a pretty good spoiler that Jim makes it back.
Marilyn really did lose her ring down the drain but it wasn't hard to retrieve.
Everything in the movie happened except for the panicking; that's what actors would've done in the position of the astronauts.
Also, one man made the CO2 filter converter.
Fun fact: John Aaron, the guy who said they need to shut down everything, was famous before this on Apollo 12, which was hit by lightning twice, and started putting out garbage telemetry. John said "Try SCE to Aux", Commander Pete Conrad said "WHAT THE HELL IS FCE TO AUX?" Last minute replacement Al Bean knew that switch from training, which was above his head, and the auxiliary Signal Control Electronics prevented an abort, saving the mission.
The United States Navy had a computer built in 1946 to calculate the trajectories of battleship artillery shells (It was called the ENIAC). The whole thing was made of vacuum tubes and filled an entire 5 story building. So, to have a computer that could fit into one room in 1969 was a pretty big deal.
As an old timer (74), I'm still amazed we've gotten 'em down to fitting in a shirt pocket. (Do shirts still have pockets?)
@@lesnyk255 You can still buy shirts that have pockets. Those are my favorite. If I have to wear one without pockets, then I wear carpenters' jeans, because they have good pockets for pens and sharpies.
Jack Swigert was fully qualified to dock the CSM and LEM and even if he couldn't have done it, there were 2 other people with him that were also fully qualified. His inability to perform the docking was dramatized for the movie.
The Lunar Module was designed to get two men to the moon, while the third piloted the Command Module.
7:43 "Was it carelessness? I mean, I doubt it with how NASA usually runs things."
*Sighs in Challenger.*
Having a computer in a single room was compact in the 60’s. I was born in 1965 and I didn’t see my first home computer until 1980 when my high school got four Apple II computers. When I entered college in 1983, everyone used a mainframe that took up the entire basement of the math building.
It was almost seven years after Apollo 13 that pocket calculators and LED digital watches became affordable. That’s why everyone was using sliderules and pencils to figure out the navigation equations.
Btw, there was never any doubt about Swaggart’s qualifications. He would never have been allowed on the mission if there were. That’s all dramatic BS.
When this came out, most people knew the story (unlike now) and it is amazing how this movie kept us all on the edge of our seats even though we knew how it ended.
The Cray supercomputer of 1985 had less power than an iPhone 5. (according to an infographic I saw)
I was 16 during Apollo 13 and very big in space exploration. I was glued to my TV during the entire event. I can still remember Walter Cronkite's broadcasts clearly today.
The thing about the white vest is each mission he would get a new vest with the mission patch on it.
You see them driving Corvettes, Florida Chevrolet dealer Jim Rathman teamed up with GM to lease Corvettes to the astronauts for $1.00
Great reaction, I was dying from laughter during the intro!
13:05 A full A7L suit was 28 kg for the "Launch Setup" and 83 kg for the "Lunar Walk Setup", the latter included the additional protective gear and the backpack.
33:35 the original mission involved only two of them landing on the moon while the third (Swigert) remains in orbit, so the calculations weren't taking into account that all three of them now had to use the air in the module. This is why they have Swigert suggest he will just have to hold his breath.
I'm dying 😂 she's adorable. I just stumbled upon you two and am already excited to see what you think. You're both so sweet with each other.
I can clearly remember sitting on my the floor in my grandmother's living room watching Neill Armstrong step out onto the moon. You asked how many people around the world were watching. Most likely every one of them that had access to a tv. I was 8 years old. And the remark about the computers fitting into a single room. Just imagine, most computers at that time had to be housed in their own building, and now we are walking around with them in our pocket or strapped to our wrist. All that progress in less than 60 years. I recently met Neill Armstrong's son. He lives in the Cincinnati area and he is a singer/actor. He was singing with the Big Band that was playing at the event we were attending. Very nice man.
It took longer than normal for reentry because the ship was too light because they still didn't get the weight quite right when there were no moon rocks. Because it was a little light, the reentry angle was a bit shallow so it took longer to reenter. Great reaction btw.
I was alive in 1970 and I was glued to the UK coverage, even before the accident happened. Every time I watch this movie, Ron Howard's direction brings it all back. I can't express how much the whole world was holding it's collective breath, eager for any news of the mission and hoping that a miracle would happen. And, even though I know they survive, I still get tears in my eyes when those parachutes open after the longest ever period of loss of radio signal.
Fred only calculated for 2 people because most of the training regarding the LEM would be for when it was supposed to be landing on and ascending back up from the Moon, when there were only supposed to be 2 people in it (him and Jim) so that would probably be his mental default regarding those specific calculations.
Also, I believe they took longer to emerge from blackout at the end because they were coming in a little more shallow than usual.
"something broke on your daddy's spaceship"
One of the heaviest lines in any movie ever.
Everyone was watching the first moon landing live. I was one year old and my parents woke me up so I could watch it!
Great Reaction at 48:56 that is the real Jim Lovell shaking hands with Tom Hanks
Ugh 10 seconds in, and y’all make me smile and giggle. She’s great🫶🏼 her personality is just so sweet and hilarious.😆
At 34:52 "Steely-eyed missile man" is the greatest compliment a NASA employee can get. It refers to someone who quickly comes up with a solution to a tough problem while under great pressure.
I saw the first Moon landing live ! I was 7 yrs old. My Father woke my little Brother and myself, for the Take off, and the Landing. For us it was amazing.
The actual line was “Houston, we *had* a problem” As if it was past tense. These Astronauts were made of even stronger stuff than given credit for.
Lovell’s actual quote was, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”
~ per NASA.gov
movie suggestions: Stargate (sci fi), Rain Man (drama), Fiddler on the Roof (historical musical drama), The Italian Job (2001 i think, heist)
I saw this live on TV. The officer shaking Tom Hanks' hand on the aircraft carrier is the real Jim Lovell.
It took over 4 minutes for the ship to regain contact at the end, because the angle the ship was falling to Earth was “straighter” than it normally should have been, so it took longer for the ship to get lower.
The first computers were enormous and took up multiple rooms. Getting one small enough to fit into a room was a massive accomplishment. The Apollo Guidance Computer was the first computer to use transistors because they needed it to be small enough to fit into the spacecraft. Even then, it was a bespoke computer with woven memory. The computer alone was a marvel of engineering.
Apollo 13 was directed by actor Ron Howard.
There is a lot to discuss, so I'm going to time stamp each applicable part, that way there will be appropriate context
2:52 - Fortunately, they did not burn alive. The fire melted the hoses feeding oxygen to their suits, and the toxic fumes leaked in until all three were asphyxiated. While still a horrible death, it wasn't quite as gruesome or painful. The test was called the "plugs out", in which all umbilical connections to the ground are removed and the spacecraft is testing how well it runs on its own power. At the same time, they were doing a pressure leak test. With the cabin sealed, they pressured the cabin up to 17 psi to simulate positive pressure against the 14.8 psi at sea level. The problem is,... pure oxygen at high pressure is just another name for "bomb". All it took was one little spark to send the entire cabin ablaze. Because of this, they changed the procedure to using normal air (78% nitrogen, 22% oxygen, approximately), which would bleed away during ascent and become the normal 5psi pure oxygen space environment upon reaching orbit.
3:15 - Jay Lovell was attending a military academy at the time. So yeah, he needed a haircut :P
3:35 - It was an estimated television audience of over 600 million people. It was the most watched event in television history. Which makes it all the more sad that two missions later, barely anyone cared.
4:50 - Yes, Jim Lovell was Command Module Pilot of Apollo 8 (essentially the navigator). The Apollo program was broken up into segments, each testing a critical component for later missions. Apollo 2-6 were unmanned tests. Apollo 7 tested the Command Module in Earth Orbit. Apollo 8 flew the Command Module all the way out to the moon. Apollo 9 man-tested the Lunar Module in Earth Orbit. Apollo 10 took both all the way to the moon and tested different abort procedures. Apollo 11 would make the first historic landing. Apollo 12 would make a pinpoint landing, and every mission that followed was dedicated to scientific study of geologically significant sites on the surface.
7:13 - Yes, Marilyn Lovell had many bad dreams before the flight. Jim made the genius (sarcastic) decision of taking her to see the movie "Marooned", which was about a trio of Apollo astronauts who were stuck in space, where the character named Jim was lost outside the spacecraft (and killed) before they could be rescued. Yeah... way to go, Jim, good call LOL
7:38 - So, the root cause. By the time of Apollo 1, the development was an absolute atrocious MESS. Procedures were changing on a daily basis, software didn't function, nothing they simulated held any significance for long with all the changes, and the Block-I (i.e. first version of the) Apollo Command Module was the most complicated piece of machinery every built by Humans at the time,... and it was rushed. And with everyone in NASA working overtime and rushing the schedule, not stopping to take time to really examine every problem before pushing ahead to the next test,... it was a horrible mixture. Add to that the previously mentioned mixture (or in this case, non-mixture) of 17psi of pure oxygen.
Somewhere within 30 miles of wiring within the cabin, a length of insulation became frayed in two spots. When a current went through the wire, there was an arc that created a spark. That spark, sitting in 17psi pure oxygen, just continued to glow and glow and glow, until finally reaching the nylon netting under Grissom's seat. This netting immediately went ablaze, which would spread out to everything around it. Foam pads, Velcro practically wallpapered all over the place, more nylon under other seats, the supply bags, basically a big internal explosion. With everything on fire, the pressure in the cabin jumped from 17psi to 25 psi, which made the inward-opening hatch impossible to pull against. Within about 20 seconds, all three men were dead.
So, the question: "Was there a mistake that was made? Was it carelessness?" The answer to all was "yes", and virtually everyone at NASA and the contractor North American Aviation were at fault. As Flight Director Gene Kranz would accuse to all his flight controllers (and himself) - "No one stood up and said DAMMIT STOP!"
Apollo was put on hold for a year and a half during not only an investigation, but a complete reworking of procedures and development. While some would say they should have switched contractors, it was far too late in the game to make such a drastic change and still meet Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon before the end of the decade. So North American accepted blame, laid off a few key people, and promised it would never happen again. The Block-II was a vast improvement in every way.
9:38 - Backup crews exist for that very reason. They all do the same training as the Prime Crew, and are fully qualified and capable of stepping in whenever needed. Usually if something happens to one of the Prime Crew, the ENTIRE crew is swapped out for the backup crew, specifically because of how each team worked with each other for so long. But since Charlie Duke (the backup Lunar Module Pilot) was the one who got the measles in the first place, that was not an option.
The movie does a terrible job portraying just how competent Jack Swigert truly was. I know they wanted an "earning his stripes" storyline, but it was almost an unfair hatchet job to a truly remarkable pilot and qualified astronaut.
9:42 - Delaying the launch is not really possible. The primary reason is where the moon is, and what phase of eclipse it is in to guarantee proper sunlight in the landing site, AND adequate journey to that specific landing site at the lowest cost of fuel. Any delay would be at the cost of several months,... and with Congress watching NASA like a hawk, ready to cut back funds at a moments notice,... trying to explain "one of the crewmembers got sick" is not an adequate explanation for costing them what would amount to tens of millions in the delay.
15:10 - it was actually a very simple problem. In fact it was a safety procedure. When an engine reads abnormal pressure or thrust, it immediately shuts down to prevent a more serious problem. If it had kept burning with a pressure leak or a broken part, it could have potentially exploded. So shutting down was the much better option. Fortunately it was the center engine, so the center of thrust remained constant, despite losing a bit of acceleration. Since the same amount of fuel was there, and all engines drew from the same source, they could just burn the other 4 for longer to make up for it.
As for "already have a problem", all missions have little problems, and this one was no different. That's why he jokes "looks like we just had our glitch for this mission"
17:00 - it was a common problem called "Space Adaptation Syndrome", otherwise known as "Space Sickness". At the time of Apollo, about 30% of astronauts suffered from it. As they learned more, they were able to mitigate the problem, but it never fully went away. It inevitably occurs during the first day of spaceflight, and by the second day it settles and is no longer a problem. This is why spacecraft en route to the International Space Station take a slower 2-day approach, so by the time the important docking phase approaches, any space sickness would have already passed.
Your equilibrium is based on two factors - your eyesight and the fluids in your inner ear. If the fluids are jostling, and your eyes see motion, your brain connects the two and acknowledges you are in motion. If the fluids are jostling but your eyes see yourself as stationary (or conversely no jostling but your eyes see motion, like in VR), your brain gets confused and thinks something is wrong. The immediate conclusion is that you must have eaten something bad, and tells your stomach "EJECT! EJECT! EJECT!"
This is why you always want to keep your eyes open while on a roller coaster. Keeping your eyes closed will potentially trigger loss of equilibrium as your body feels motion but your eyes do not.
On Apollo, this problem was amplified because of the larger cabin that you could float around in, with numerous differing orientations, and no specific up or down, further confusing your brain. On the earlier Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, where you were constantly strapped in, you kept the same visual orientation, keeping your brain essentially grounded.
Jim was correct, Frank Borman suffered this on Apollo 8. Then Rusty Schwikhart on Apollo 9. And later Fred Haise on Apollo 13.
17:25 - There are options for the docking approach. You can always back off and re-align yourself to take another run at it. Even if you bump the LEM and bounce off, but that is dangerous, as you not only risk damaging the LEM, but also can end up sending it into a tumble, making another docking approach all but impossible. Though once you're lined up, its simply a matter of keeping the craft stable as you approach and letting momentum do the rest.
19:24 - Yeah.... the American people were fickle. Once the goal of "beating the Russians" was accomplished,... nobody cared anymore. Its like we need some kind of threat or its meaningless.
24:05 - they have "that little" because Oxygen Tank #2 blew up, and ruptured Oxygen Tank #1 causing it to leak. After this, on future Apollo missions, a third Oxygen Tank was added on the opposite side of the Service Module, so that even if such an explosion were to happen again, a backup supply would be safe on the other side. It would still kill a Lunar Landing mission, but it would still give them more than enough to safely return without as much worry. Thankfully, this was never put to the test.
25:14 - NASA is a public organization, and they are required by law to be fully transparent, especially considering how much money is being spent. There are press representatives in Mission Control at all times during the mission, who relay information out to the Network affiliates in the various offices on site. They don't have access to the Flight Controller communications, but there is essentially an announcer making constant updates on every mission from start to finish, and various levels of NASA management coming in and out to update in real time. Only the control stations themselves are kept isolated, as they have to focus on their job. But the visitor's gallery behind them is wide open.
30:14 - its not much of an exaggeration. The difference is, he said "barely enough to run this coffee pot for nine hours", the time being the principal factor. The re-entry batteries only need to be active for the process of re-entry, which is about 30-60 minutes. And optimally, they'd still have been powered up from the Fuel Cells on the Service Module before cutting it lose. This was just the first time they had to power up without them, using ONLY the on board batteries. And powerup is the most power-intensive portion.
31:04 - The Command Module and Lunar Module were built by separate contractors. In this case, North American Aviation for the CM, Grumman for the LM. Grumman was given the specs for the square cartridges, but elected to go with the round ones because they were the same ones used in the PLSS (Personal Life Support System) backpacks on the Spacesuits the Astronauts would use on the moon's surface. The idea being, if something went wrong with one of the suit filters, they could just use one of the Lunar Module filters as a backup. Nobody ever once considered they'd have to use ones from the CM, as no one ever considered the LM would ever be needed for extended duration as a lifeboat.
32:20 - Fred Haise had developed a UTI (urinary tract infection), which only got worse as they were limited on how much water they could drink, so he could not flush out his system as one would normally want to do.
33:26 - an understandable mistake to make, as the LM was only ever designed to carry two people to the Lunar Surface, and only for a period of 2 days (later three after the upgrades on Apollo 15). As nearly everything involved in the LM revolved around its 2-man crew, that factor is often a constant when calculating consumption of consumables.
During the actual missions, the Commander and Lunar Module Pilot fly down to the moon, while the Command Module Pilot remains in orbit.
38:18 - if you look closely, you'll see there are strips of Velcro on the Lunar Module flooring, made to stick to the bottom of their boots, so they could anchor themselves in a stand-up position while flying the LM.
42:08 - we may see Neil and Buzz as big celebrities, but to the other Astronauts they are just fellow co-workers. Neil came in as part of the same class of nine astronauts as Jim Lovell did before the beginning of the Gemini program, so they new each other quite well. Buzz was from the third class afterward, but he had also flown with Jim on Gemini XII, so both men were very close with the Lovell family. Theoretically, Blanch (Jim's mom) should have known them by now, but this was a fun little line as mothers often see their boy as the best and most important of them all
47:27 - the reason it took a little bit longer is because they were coming in a little shallow. At a shallower angle, there is a risk of the spacecraft skipping off the atmosphere and bouncing back out into space. Thankfully this didn't happen, but there was a little bit of skippage which slowed their descent slightly, making them a little late coming out of Blackout.
48:57 - fun fact, the Navy Captain that Tom Hanks is shaking hands with is the real life Jim Lovell wearing the same uniform he wore when he was still in the service.