Apollo13 Documentary

[shropshire 0]

I watched a good documentary about Apollo13 last night and it seems that apart from just a couple of Hollywood moments, Ron Howard did a good job (overall) on his film.

They were some VERY lucky chaps, f'sure!!



Howard said that at the pre-opening screening, they gave out cards to be filled in by the folks and one guy said it was shite and that 'They' would never have survived ... Bwhaaaaaaaaaa - He must have had his head in the sand during April 1970!!

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

This one? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/

It really wasn't a documentary, it was a full blown movie. None of the shots (even of the launch) were historical footage. It was all done for the movie.

And while it seems to be close to the actual event, it really minimizes the importance of the misson controllers on the ground. There are a number of things that the movie shows the astronauts "coming up with the idea" when in reality it was the controllers in Houston that had come up with the "work around" procedures. The reentry checklist is the most glaring, but there are a bunch of others.

But overall it's a great movie. During the reentry scene, the tension is incredible, even though you know they come out ok (if you have any understanding of the US space program).

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[obelixtim 150]

Read a book about the mission some time ago. It has the transcripts of all the comms, and the timeline from blastoff till splashdown.

There was a lot of headscratching on the ground by a lot of peole to come up with thew plan that saved the crew. They were very lucky boys to survive.

There are some great books about the Apollo missions. A good one was written by Michael Collins, "Riding the Fire", the Apollo 11 flight...

My computer beat me at chess, It was no match for me at kickboxing....

[shropshire 0]

I can see where I confused you (I wasn't very clear - sorry).... that was the FILM .... I watched a DOCUMENTARY which also discussed Howards film.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[wmw999 2,587]

Quote

it seems that apart from just a couple of Hollywood moments, Ron Howard did a good job (overall) on his film.

The view from within the NASA community at the time was that the way overblown emotionalism was the biggest sour note. Other "gotchas" were at the level of their having used the wrong NASA logo in a couple of places.

Having worked in one of the backrooms during missions, that would be an accurate assessment. I haven't been there for life-threatening problems, but was in there during part of STS-83, which was cut short because of fuel cell problems, and it was all business. The crew places a lot of faith in the ground, and the ground expects the crew to do their jobs.

As far as who came up with the solutions, I thought the movie really made it clear that most of it came from the ground -- the crew would have wanted to participate, but the ground would do most of it, there are hundreds or even thousands of people working on a major problem on the ground, and 3 in the cockpit.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Phillbo 11]

http://apollo13.spacelog.org/page/

[pchapman 279]

For those inclined to read, here are the web pages I've read and saved:

An article emphasizing the years-of-preparation over the saving-lives-with-duct-tape aspect of rescuing Apollo 13:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/apollo-13-we-have-a-solution/0

(If something good happens due to both planning for contingencies, and due to last minute improvisation, which do people focus on and keep talking about?)

One commentator's view:
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/apo13.htm

Another commentator, Jerry Woodfill:

(He over hypes some aspects of it all, but does a good job in trying to look at all sorts of factors, including ones from well before Apollo 13, that contributed to things working out. Not all of these things were "luck", some were "good planning".)

He wrote a short article:
http://www.spaceacts.com/stircryo.htm

And prided the input for "13 Things That Saved Apollo 13":

http://www.universetoday.com/62339/13-things-that-saved-apollo-13/

Understanding the time line of events is a great help in going from a mental image of Hollywood movie timing to the actual sequence and timing.

E.g., How soon after the accident did they power down the CM and jump into the LM? One might imagine it happening pretty fast, and maybe the Apollo 13 movie implied that too. But they didn't start a full power down for 1/2 an hour after the accident. Nobody went into the LM until 1 hr 50 min after the accident. And the CM and CSM (service module) weren't fully powered down until 2 1/2 hours after the accident.

A fairly exhaustive timeline - but one has to pick through it to highlight the crucial parts:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_13h_Timeline.htm

(Even wikipedia has a graphic of the flight with a few times listed, but it is more about the engine burn times than parts of the accident sequence.)

And if you want to examine the raw voice transcripts etc, the official NASA source:
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/

Every analysis, even by experienced people, is a bit different, because it takes so much background knowledge to evaluate the MEANING of factual statements. One has to take everything into account if one tries to answer the question, "Would they have held out another 12 hours? 24? 36?"

E.g., How many amp hours are available in the CM batteries? How much are needed to prepare for reentry? How much power was sent back from the LM to the CM by their manual cable connection? And so, how important was that to not losing the crew?

Or, one commentator mentions that a good proportion of H2O supplies would be needed by the sublimators for system cooling. Would they have run out if they had to fly longer? What are the alternatives? Could they put water into the system by taking it from the lunar suit cooling systems, and would that be enough?

Particularly interesting is Jerry Woodfill's point of view on the timing of how many cryostirs were done, and when the wire actually shorted -- it couldn't be so late that the LM was already 'used up', but not so early that it would add a couple more days to the whole trip.

I like this stuff.