Apollo 13 and 2018

"Apollo XIII" ^ | 1/9/18 | vanity

[tomkat]

My LEM looked magnificent after I crinkled the foil and applied it to the sides of the craft

Outstanding  :-)

[SauronOfMordor]

On the way to the moon you had the service module engine pushing the whole LM assembly, so you can assume there was reasonable structural strength. Plus I’m sure they throttled the LM engine carefully.

[noiseman]

”All the guys at the IPMS meetings were adults like me. The good thing was that all the modelers had honed their skills since childhood and their efforts were very impressive. Many of these guys entered models in contests for judging. the bad thing was there simply were not many young people involved in it or interested in it.”

When I was doing my internship in airport operations, my supervisor was a guy who had been a medic in Vietnam. Even though he wasn’t a pilot, he loved the combat aircraft from the Vietnam era and had some incredible models in his office. What really made them stand out was the amazing paint jobs he had done. I was never very good at painting my models, but the guys who were true artists in that regard could make them look real, with realistic wear and tear, oil streaks, etc.

[namvolunteer]

Almost nobody was watching Apollo 13. I was driving northward from Eureka, CA when the radio interrupted around midnight PDT to alert us about the crisis.
Almost all of the USA was unaware. There was a great calculus test that night: Mission Control told the astronauts to figure the angles of three stars so they could slingshot the back of the Moon to get back to Earth otherwise they would go to the end of the solar system.
I’ve never heard another person remember that facet.

[mrsmith]

“Salyut 7” is a better movie than Howard’s. Maybe just a better story for a movie.

I’d followed other space shots fanatically but by Apollo 13 I’d “discovered girls” so barely remember it.

[pabianice]

I’ll look for it.

[pabianice]

Jules Bergman was a private pilot the network used as their “aviation expert.” After a broadcast that was full of technical mistakes I sent him a letter with gentle corrections. His response was explosive. How DARE I correct him?? He accused me of sending him a form letter (to what?) and besides, he was not wrong, I was. As a ATP/CFI/retired Navy I thought about writing him back but decided it would be pointless.

[pabianice]

Thickness of 5 sheets of aluminum foil.

[pabianice]

For several years I mentored a high school aviation club. The idea was to help kids run a club that was interested in aviation. After the key members left for college, it quickly became a waste of time where kids showed-up when the felt like it and expected me to entertain them. Very disappointing. When I was their age I would have loved such a club.

[Daffynition]

Landing site

[Daffynition]

The boots of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon and the prints on photographs doesn't match.

What's going on?

[utahb52]

One of my favorite scenes is when they manually transfer the position and attitude date to the lunar module’s computer. Lovell uses the worksheet but he’s stressed and nervous so he asks Houston to double check his math. Three controllers use slide rules to check, with closeups of the slide rules. I wonder how many millennials today might watch that scene and have no idea what they are using.