In the movie, a panel shows lights for each of the five engines. The four that were working properly were on, but the center one was blinking. In reality, the center light would simply have been off. "In Apollo 13, the movie, the light was purposely made to blink to get the viewers' attention.
Apollo 13 is arguably the most realistic movie about space out there. The Ron Howard-directed film chronicles the challenges that the real-life crew of NASA's Apollo 13 mission faced when they had to turn around from their lunar destination after one of their oxygen tanks malfunctioned.
While talking to Hollywood Outbreak, Tom Hanks shared, “We just felt like an absolute idiot when Jim Lovell came by and we were flicking switches.” But to everyone's surprise, Jim said, “Hey, it looks like a real thing.” The actor shared that he was in doubt if they were giving justice to the real-life incident.
Released in 1995, the film tells the true story of the Apollo 13 mission that nearly ended in disaster. In April 1970, Apollo 13 was intended to be the third lunar landing mission, but an explosion occurred en route to the moon, crippling the spaceship and preventing the astronauts from reaching the moon.
Among the many unsung heroes laboring to save the crew of the ill-fated Apollo 13 was the aerospace engineer and rookie astronaut Ken Mattingly.
Anthony Kontaratos was truly one of the unsung heroes in the history of NASA, as he was not only the engineer responsible for helping save the crew of the Apollo 13 mission, but also one of the scientists who placed the first man on the moon.
Lovell was selected as a potential astronaut candidate for Project Mercury but was turned down because of a temporary excess of a protein called bilirubin in his blood, which could have been indicative of a liver problem.
The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.
Apollo 13 was NASA's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface. During the mission's dramatic series of events, an oxygen tank explosion almost 56 hours into the flight forced the crew to abandon all thoughts of reaching the moon.
Fifty-six hours in, with the crew nearly 200,000 miles from Earth, an explosion in one of Apollo 13's two oxygen tanks left the command module Odyssey fatally damaged.
Discussions between the Apollo 13 crew
According to Jim Lovell, there were no discussions or fights, as portrayed in the movie. The most important thing for the crew at that point was to focus on their greatest goal: to return home.
In Apollo 13 (1995), the real Jim Lovell plays the captain of the USS Iwo Jima. Double movie detail: the director wanted to portray him as an admiral, but Lovell insisted on portraying the actual rank he had achieved when he retired from the Navy. He also wore his old uniform.
Other astronauts:
Larry Williams as Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin. David Andrews as Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad. Ben Marley as Apollo 13 backup Commander John Young.
Marilyn Lovell lost her ring in real life, too
In the film, we see Jim Lovell's wife lose her wedding ring down the shower drain. Marilyn Lovell says that this happened in real life, saying, "To me, it felt like the worst omen of all" but she was later able to get the ring back (AMC).
To answer the updated question of "Would replacing a damaged tank have prevented the Apollo 13 incident"? Absolutely yes. Bearing in mind that that tank was damaged in two completely separate, mostly unrelated ways. It had some damaged plumbing, preventing a testing drain for completing correctly.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo 13 mission that never made it to the moon, the one where Commander Jim Lovell uttered the phrase “Houston, we've had a problem.” NASA calls the mission a “successful failure,” because even though an explosion crippled the primary spacecraft two days in, Lovell ...
Update: A typical Apollo blackout lasted about 4 minutes. Due to a shallower re-entry path, Apollo 13's blackout was calculated to last about 4.5 minutes. Flight director Gene Kranz's logs show that it took about 6 minutes to re-establish contact with Apollo 13.
Losing two or three fuel cells and any reentry batteries at any point in the mission demanded an emergency shutdown to conserve all onboard power for the trip home and reentry through the atmosphere. Losing one fuel cell was the only failure that didn't mean a bad day.
So, why haven't they sent humans back to the moon yet? The two primary causes are money and priorities. The race to put people on the moon was sparked in 1962 by US President John F. Kennedy's 'We Choose to Go to the Moon' address, in which he pledged that by the end of the decade, an American would walk on the moon'.
During this flight Haise developed a urinary tract infection and later kidney infections. These caused him to be in pain for most of the trip. Haise was slated to become the sixth human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 13 behind Lovell, who was to be fifth.
But when Swigert turned on the fans on the second oxygen tank for a routine “cryo stir” on the night of April 13, the damaged wiring caused a spark, starting a fire. At 9:08 pm, with its internal pressure mounting, the tank exploded.
Unable to land, the crew of Apollo 13 changed their course to rapidly slingshot around the Moon and return to Earth. Three days after the accident, the astronauts safely re-entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean.
The purpose of stirring the cryogenic tanks containing the hydrogen and oxygen was to give more accurate readings of how much gas was left. But because of an electrical fault, one of the oxygen tanks exploded. Initially the crew thought a meteoroid had hit them, but it soon became apparent they were losing oxygen.
In this instance, it refers to Mission Control, located in Houston, Texas. Let's take a look at the crucial role they play. Going to the Moon would have been impossible without Mission Control. Almost every move the astronauts made were monitored, supported, or advised by Houston's ground control team.