Author Topic: Apollo 13  (Read 9298 times)

Offline Michael22090

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Apollo 13
« on: 02/05/2007 09:40 pm »
I have been coming here a while, but I just recently made an account. I am greatly enjoying this site because space travel and pretty much everything about space interests me.

Anyway, I have a paper for my Dual Enrollment History Class that I thought someone here could help me with. We have to do a 5 page paper about the historical accuracies of a movie. One of the choices was Apollo 13, so naturally, I chose it. I was just wondering if someone would explain to me how accurate the movie is to what really happened and describe some of the differences between the two.

Thanks,
Michael

-Michael

Offline Andrewwski

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #1 on: 02/05/2007 09:52 pm »
If you really want to read up on it, read Jim Lovell's "Lost Moon", which is what the movie was based on.  From what I remember, it is more of a truthful account than the movie.

I remember picking up a couple inaccuracies in the movie but overall there are not too many.

The one that gets me every time is Ken Mattingly watching the launch.  One is that it portrays him way too close to the pad.  Another is that the tower is on the wrong side of the Saturn V from Mattingly's point of view (unless he drove and parked his car on the middle of the Atlantic).
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Offline Jim

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #2 on: 02/05/2007 10:02 pm »
There is a dedicated thread to thing.  Use the search function

Offline Dana

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #3 on: 02/05/2007 10:18 pm »
A few off the top of my head:

Jim Lovell's Corvette is the wrong color-should be midnight blue.

Rollout of the Saturn V from the VAB to the pad took place months before the mission, not a couple of days.

Ken Mattingly was in Houston at Mission Control for the launch, not watching from the Cape. So yeah, he was WAY too close! :)

When Lovell's T-38 flies over his house, he's WAY too low to be leaving a visible vapor trail from his exhaust like that.

The swing arms at launch should all retract from the Saturn V at once.

Ken Mattingly is depicted as being the only astronaut in the simulators during the emergency, when in reality many astronauts took turns in both the CM and LM sims working out procedures for the now-mostly-improvised mission. The filmmakers no doubt used the Mattingly character to streamline that for the audience. Likewise, shifts rotated at Mission Control, with other guys taking the Flight chair besides Gene Kranz. Still, everybody was putting in heroic hours on this one to bring the crew home safely.

Gary Senise should have shaved his head to play Mattingly. :)

The engine status lights during ascent (the premature center-engine shutdown on the second stage) don't function the way they did in real life. I'd have to watch the film again to remember the details.

The Prime Crew of Lovell and Haise are depicted in the film as being very skeptical of Swigert's abilities in the CMP role, when in reality, everything I have ever seen says they had no qualms about flying with him. Swigert was in fact an expert on the Command Module, having spent most of the 4 years since his selection developing and supporting the CM systems working with North American. They were actually quite fortunate it was those three guys on that mission-Swigert's CM expertise, Haise's equal or greater understanding of the LM systems, and commanded by Jim Lovell, at the time the most experienced astronaut in all of NASA on his 4th flight and second trip around the Moon.

The crew's first radio communication to Houston after the ionization blackout is inaccurate, although it is much more satisfying dramatically than the words, "OK, Joe."
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Offline nathan.moeller

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #4 on: 02/05/2007 10:22 pm »
The movie is no documentary, but it's close to what actually happened.  I wouldn't write a paper based on just the movie though.  However, there is a 25th NASA Anniversary DVD set (cheap) that gives a lot of insight into the mission.  It talks about the early missions on the first disc, then the Challenger disaster and first 25 years of NASA on the second.  I want to say I got the whole set for either $10 or $20 but I'm not perfectly sure.  It wasn't much.  Check it out. :)
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Offline Rocket Guy

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #5 on: 02/05/2007 10:26 pm »
"Failure is not an option" can be your report's title; it was made up for the movie. :-)

Offline gordo

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #6 on: 02/05/2007 10:27 pm »
Its really a go watch the move, read the book then re-watch the movie sort of thing.

A few from me

The Movie only features the final course correction burn, the Free return and PC2  ones were the biggies

John Aaron was the key person that came up with the power up procedure along with any other.

The CO2 emergency was not the emergency depicted in the film.  It was known about early on and the fix was in place long before it was needed.




Offline Dana

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #7 on: 02/05/2007 10:32 pm »
Quote
gordo - 5/2/2007  3:27 PM

Its really a go watch the move, read the book then re-watch the movie sort of thing.

A few from me

The Movie only features the final course correction burn, the Free return and PC2  ones were the biggies

John Aaron was the key person that came up with the power up procedure along with any other.

The CO2 emergency was not the emergency depicted in the film.  It was known about early on and the fix was in place long before it was needed.




Still, the CO2 sequence of the movie is a good example of dramatic storytelling in the film format: you get a satisfying dramatic payoff from spending 5 or 10 minutes waiting for a lightbulb to turn off LOL! :) The whole outcome of the story is already known by most knowlegable viewers, and yet it's still compelling to watch. Despite that and the innacuracies, it's told well.
"Don't play dumb with me! You're not as good at it as I am!"-Col. Flagg

"'Second Place' is just the first loser."-Bobby Allison

Offline nathan.moeller

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #8 on: 02/05/2007 10:34 pm »
All these are correct.  The movie is dramatized.  That's not to say the mission wasn't intense and suspenseful, but some elements that weren't all-that dramatic are depicted as intense to hype up the emotion of viewers.

A few things that aren't true:

1. Mattingly was no where near to the pad as is shown in the movie when the Saturn V lifted off
2. Jim Lovell never said "Houston we have a problem."  That's one of the biggest misquotes in existence.
3. The first words upon their return are inaccurate.  In the movie, Tom Hanks states "Hello, Houston?  This is Odyssey.  It's good to see you again."  In fact, Swigert is the first to be heard in the transmission, then Houston radios back that they could see them on the mains.

Look up the goofs on us.imdb.com under Apollo 13 and there are plenty more.  The movie is amazing but not something off which to base a research paper.  There are many aspects that are true but read about it after enjoying the movie.
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Offline Dana

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #9 on: 02/05/2007 10:35 pm »
BTW I would also reccommend going over to www.apolloarchive.com and listening to the sound files of the mission in the multimedia section, and compare the relatively cool and composed test-pilot tone of the actual transmissions during most of the emergencies, to the dramatically amped-up exchanges during the accident sequence of the film.
"Don't play dumb with me! You're not as good at it as I am!"-Col. Flagg

"'Second Place' is just the first loser."-Bobby Allison

Offline Michael22090

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RE: Apollo 13
« Reply #10 on: 02/05/2007 11:22 pm »
Thanks for all of the suggestions and advice, guys. I am sure I will use many of these examples in my paper. It isn't really a research paper, by the way. We had to pick a movie and write about how accurate it is, so all of these examples will come in handy. Thanks everyone!
-Michael

Offline joema

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #11 on: 02/05/2007 11:53 pm »
Quote
nathan.moeller - 5/2/2007  5:34 PM
...Jim Lovell never said "Houston we have a problem."  That's one of the biggest misquotes in existence....
Look up the goofs on us.imdb.com under Apollo 13 and there are plenty more...

Lovell's actual statement was "Houston we've had a problem". Compared to the movie script "Houston we have a problem", I don't see that as one of the biggest misquotes in existence. It's true IMDB so described it, so maybe doing a research paper on how accurate IMDB is would be good material.

Offline spaceflight101

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #12 on: 02/06/2007 12:40 am »
Take a look at Gene Kranz's book "Failure Is Not An Option" for the view through his eyes on Apollo 13. It will give you the view from Mission Control.

Offline Andrewwski

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #13 on: 02/06/2007 12:56 am »
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nathan.moeller - 5/2/2007  6:34 PM

3. The first words upon their return are inaccurate.  In the movie, Tom Hanks states "Hello, Houston?  This is Odyssey.  It's good to see you again."  In fact, Swigert is the first to be heard in the transmission, then Houston radios back that they could see them on the mains.

Ah, yes, if I remember right, didn't Houston say "Odyssey, Houston, standing by," and then Swigert replied "OK, Joe."?
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Offline nathan.moeller

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #14 on: 02/06/2007 02:13 am »
Yeah Andrew it was something to that effect.  Joema, by "biggest" I mean it's widely-recognized as being correct when it's not.  It's close yes, but I think you understand what I meant.
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Offline Naraht

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #15 on: 02/06/2007 08:42 am »
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Dana - 5/2/2007  6:18 PM
 Likewise, shifts rotated at Mission Control, with other guys taking the Flight chair besides Gene Kranz.
Actually, Glynn Lunney *is* depicted serving as flight director during the movie (if not the other two). It's just one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it things....

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #16 on: 02/06/2007 12:51 pm »
There are a couple of light documentaries on the DVD.  And there's an audio commentary track with the Lovells.  If you watch the movie, I would certainly re-watch it each of the commentaries on.  You might also try newspaper archives at your local library to see how the story actually unfolded.

Offline acrysell

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Re: Apollo 13
« Reply #17 on: 02/06/2007 01:02 pm »
Apollo 13 is one of the few films I paid to sit and watch at the cinema.   As a film it certainly works and I didn't notice too many mistakes at the time.   However, the man sitting next to me was obviously totally absorbed because he kept saying "They're gonna die" at every dramatic turn.   I felt like telling him to keep it down because they don't die and everyone lives happily ever after, sort of.   I was good: I let him get on with it.

Offline Shorty Powers

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RE: Apollo 13
« Reply #18 on: 02/06/2007 01:14 pm »
Regarding historical inaccuracies, this one is really nit-picky:

The only Saturn V which had an Instrument Unit painted with a dashed black line (rather than a solid black line all the way around) was Apollo/Saturn-500F, the facilities test vehicle used for testing the bird's mating compatibility with L/C-39.

The Apollo 13's movie Saturn V was incorrectly depicted with the dashed line.

Don't ask me why, but seeing the wrong paint scheme on the IU bothers me everytime I watch an otherwise outstanding movie.  Maybe it's the scale modeler in me.
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Offline aero313

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RE: Apollo 13
« Reply #19 on: 02/06/2007 03:04 pm »
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Shorty Powers - 6/2/2007  9:14 AM

Regarding historical inaccuracies, this one is really nit-picky:

The only Saturn V which had an Instrument Unit painted with a dashed black line (rather than a solid black line all the way around) was Apollo/Saturn-500F, the facilities test vehicle used for testing the bird's mating compatibility with L/C-39.

The Apollo 13's movie Saturn V was incorrectly depicted with the dashed line.

Don't ask me why, but seeing the wrong paint scheme on the IU bothers me everytime I watch an otherwise outstanding movie.  Maybe it's the scale modeler in me.

And here I though I was the only one...

Actually, the S1 paint pattern bothered me even more.  The movie also used the 500F paint pattern on the first stage.  I mean, how hard is it to find a photo of an actual Saturn V launch to check the paint pattern...

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