Thank you for all your comments explaining the technical stuff, I definitely felt way out of my depth in regards to my space knowledge with this movie! An amazing job done by all to get them home safely
Just a summary, there were 6 successful landings in the Apollo program, but 7 attempts. Apollo 13 would have been the 3rd landing were it not for the disaster, so Apollo 14 ended up being the 3rd landing. The near tragedy of Apollo 13 influenced decisions that caused the ending of the Apollo program. The last official mission was the joint US-Soviet docking mission circa 1975.
Each Apollo mission of lunar landings was generally more ambitious and lengthy than earlier ones. By the final lunar mission of Apollo 17 in 1972, they were using the lunar rovers to cover greater distances and had the longest time on the surface.
Not sure if anyone really dove into it yet. Each mission had objectives to complete in order to slowly piece together what future missions would have to do Mercury objective 1: reach space to prove its possible Mercury objective 2: reach and maintain orbital velocity Gemini objective 1: test maneuvering in space and changing orbit altitudes Gemini objective 2: EVA (extra-vehicular activity), also known as spacewalking Gemini objective 3: test fuel cells, which generate power by mixing Hydrogen and Oxygen, allowing longer duration flight than traditional batteries Gemini objective 4: rendezvous, two craft finding each other in orbit and holding position with each other without flying apart Gemini objective 5: docking, connecting two spacecraft together in orbit, safe and stable Gemini objective 6: long-duration spaceflight, proving humans could survive and operate in weightlessness for up to 14 days Apollo objective 1: test the new 3-man Command Module Apollo objective 2: test the Lunar Module in Earth Orbit Apollo objective 3: test making the maneuver from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit, known as TLI (trans-Lunar injection) and come back home Apollo objective 4: test all the safety and abort procedures for both the Command Module and the Lunar Module, to make sure they all work properly. Every one of these objectives had to be completed successfully before they could finally give the go-ahead for a Lunar landing. And even then, further objectives followed: Apollo objective 5: land on the moon, just to prove it is possible Apollo objective 6: land at a specific point to prove precise touchdown is possible. This would be required, if any true exploration could be accomplished Apollo objective 7: land at ever-tougher landing points, in different orbits, among high peaks and deep valleys. Apollo objective 8: the most important objective and the reason for going - study the moon, learn how it came to be, get actual answers about what it is and how it formed rather than just speculation.
True story, the technical details and events as they happened in the mission were spot on, some of the private human interactions were dramatized of course. I don't think the astronauts ever lost their cool like that in the capsule.
There's a brilliant Podcast from the BBC, available on RUclips, called "13 minutes to the Moon" that did 2 series, first about Apollo 11 Moon landings and second about Apollo 13. Features Interviews and technical info about the Apollo missions and how it all worked.
Not quite spot on. The reverse flow of power was something they knew about and had trained with. I The air filter makeshift thing was also something they had made before the flight and there was a well known and understood procedure to make it, they knew that the filters didn't cross over from the LEM to the CM. There are others but it's still a great film that is 70% true.. . But not spot on.
Actually, not surviving re-entry did happen to one of the Space Shuttle flights. Back in 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia's wing was damaged by debris during launch. I always watched launches and returns when I could as I have always had a fascination with space flight. Never being remotely smart enough to be an Astronaut, I had to settle for what I could. But this group never made it back. It was so heartbreaking. That along with the horror of watching 1986's Space Shuttle Challenger blow apart on live television 73 seconds after launch was just horrific. I think I cried for several days after and still do whenever I see that footage. What made it even more heartbreaking is it was the first time they ever took a non-astronaut up with them. A teacher named Christa McAuliffe. Her school and many schools across the country allowed their students to watch the launch, only to see first-hand the tragedy.
There's gonna be plenty of comments on the technical stuff, but I wanted to mention Jim Lovell's comment about how the experience changed him, which was "Crises don't bother me anymore. I just look at them and figure out how to get out of them, and that's it." Makes sense after being in a dead spaceship heading *away* from Earth. What a way to cultivate calm!
Each Apollo mission was about meeting different milestones for getting to the moon. - Apollo 1 was a launchpad test (which had the fire that killed three astronauts) - 2-6 were unmanned tests - 7 went around the Earth - 8 and 9 went around the moon - 10 was like a dress rehearsal for landing on the moon - 11 was the mission that actually landed on the moon All the ones after 11 were more or less research missions
Actually Apollo 7 tested the CM in Earth orbit (no LM), Apollo 8 circles the moon and didn't have a LM either. Apollo 9 was to test the docking and undocking the LM from the CM and to see if the LM could actually fly, all in Earth orbit. Apollo 10 was a test run for Apollo 11, go to the moon and undock the LM, and do everything BUT land on the moon. Then 11 and 12 landed on the moon. 13 was this movie. Then 14-17 also landed on the moon. I also agree with the others that the HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon" - a 12-episode series covers all the Apollo missions is wonderful!
11 and 12 were basically test flights 11 to prove landing on the moon was possible 12 to prove that you could adequately pinpoint target a landing spot (in this case, an unmanned probe already on the surface) 13 was supposed to be the first proper geological exploratory mission... but never made it to the surface 14 had to accomplish 13's objectives 15, 16, and 17 all had an upgraded Lunar Module, for not only longer stays on the surface, but the Lunar Rover to explore much more expansive areas. At the same time, the upgraded Service Module had experiments packages of its own, not only for study in Lunar Orbit, but while en route to and from the Moon as well. Though even among spaceflight fans, very few remember this part of the mission profile. It should also be noted that four other Apollo spacecraft flew after 17 three visited the Skylab space laboratory (built from an unused Saturn IV-B booster stage) the final Apollo to fly was in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, where the American Apollo docked in space with Russian Soyuz 19, in what would be the symbolic end to the space race, not with a victory gloat, but with a friendly handshake.
@garybrockie6327 That task was supposed to have been done by Apollo 8, with Apollo 9 being a high speed reentry test of the heat shield from high earth orbit - but the LM wasn't ready by the time Apollo 8 was supposed to fly. So NASA had 8 & 9 swap missions (and crews, who'd trained for missions, not flight numbers). And since intelligence reports indicated the Soviets were preparing for a manned flight during the upcoming lunar launch window, it was decided to test the reentry procedure with an actual return from the moon instead of a simulated one. And it got us there 1st.
Watch “From the earth to the moon“ if you want to understand the Apollo program, and it was made by the same people. It’s shocking that an adult knows so little about something that was so important to world history.
Shocking? I call it absolutely infuriating. The only thing worse than the fact so few know about it is the fact there are actually people who not only believe it was fake, but are actually angry at the astronauts and engineers who did it. Even typing that churns my stomach so hard
The unity that came to the world during the Apollo 13 crisis was amazing. People across the world were praying for the astronauts. When it came time for re-entry, the Soviet Union actually sent 4 ships to the splashdown area to help in any way they could in case they were needed
They were indeed in zero g, by using a large jet aircraft (nicknamed the "vomit comet") flying an arc up and then down (like a giant roller coaster) repeatedly to create zero g for about 25 seconds at a time. Astronauts use it for training.
Technically they were in free fall, not zero g. It just creates the illusion of being in zero g because of how you're moving relative to the plane around you.
@@KorAsek453 Technically, astronauts in orbit are in free fall as they orbit the Earth and are actually falling (and rising) but missing the Earth's curved surface by virtue of horizontal speed. If the craft could hold a stationary position 200 miles (typical orbital altitude) above a point (minus the Earth's own rotation) astronauts would experience close to full body weight . And even on the way to the moon, the spacecraft is still essentially in an orbit around the sun, so it is also in free fall. Zero g simply describes the condition or experience of weightlessness while free fall better describes the process by which that happens. Whether in an orbiting spacecraft or in the plane flying parabolas (think of it as a mini parabolic orbit but below escape velocity), both those terms are valid.
For a deeper dive into the early stages of NASA:s space program, check out The Right Stuff (1983), starring (among many others) Ed Harris who played the flight director here in Apollo 13. :) It starts off with the test pilots trying to break mach 1 (the speed of sound), the selection process of the very first NASA astronauts, and the first few space flights, with the space race against the Soviet Union as the movie's backdrop. Just a great movie all around, and you get an education at the same time!
The Right Stuff is unfortunately a little too dramatized. The history of it one has to take with a grain of salt, as nearly everything but the basics was false. "From The Earth to The Moon" is a far better avenue for discovering the history of NASA and Apollo, but even that is missing quite a lot.
Hey Liv! Great reaction! It was actually interesting to see a reaction from a non-American who knows very little about the space program. This is definitely based on true events. The Gemini-Apollo program was a massive undertaking in the 1960s, with the US racing the Russians to the moon. I think this a super interesting part of history, and the Apollo 13 event, in particular, was a dramatic demonstration of the ingenuity of those involved. If you're interested, I'd encourage you to seek out Gene Kranz: Failure is Not an Option, which is a lecture he gave on the Apollo 13 incident. First Man is also a very good movie that chronicles the life of Neil Armstrong, who was the first to walk on the moon.
The white chunks that fell off the rocket when it launched were ice. The fuel in the rocket is extremely cold and condensation from the outside air freezes on it. The vibration during launch breaks it off. Awesome reaction, dear. Thank you!
One of the best impressions of this I've seen was the finale of Wings of Honneamise (Royal Space Force), which makes the effort of showing the ice forming as the tanks are fueled, so once the launch begins, its immediately clear that its the ice that's breaking off. Plus its a beautifully animated scene (and movie overall) and definitely worth a watch for any early spaceflight enthusiast, whether you enjoy anime or not.
Several people have suggested “The Right Stuff” - another space program movie based on true events. Yes! That is one amazing movie. Terrific cast, led by an impossibly handsome and intense Sam Shepard. He plays Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. (About Shepard: In addition to being a profound and charismatic actor, he was also a genius writer, a director, a musician (he collaborated with Bob Dylan), and a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. Over 60 plays. Many rank him alongside O'Neill as America's greatest 20th century playwright. Amazing. Nobody should be trusted with so much talent. It's just not fair.) The rest of the cast of 'The Right Stuff' includes Ed Harris as John Glenn, the first American ever to orbit the earth. (Here in 'Apollo 13' Harris played Gene Kranz, the guy in charge of Mission Control.) There are also Dennis Quaid, Barbara Hershey, Scott Glenn, etc, etc. Lots of wonderful actors you'll see in many other movies. Don't be put off by the film's length. it grabs you from beginning to end. It tells a giant of a story, about the beginnings of the NASA manned space flight program. Like 'Apollo 13', it's about the technical and human challenges they all faced -- the pilots, astronauts, scientists, and their families. There's a good deal of humor as well. It's largely accurate (with one big controversial exception). Highly recommended.
There were six Apollo missions that landed on the moon. Apollo 11 (the first one and seen here at 1:36), Apollo 12, and 14 through 17. If this history interests you watch the "From the Earth to the Moon" (1995) docudrama miniseries also produced by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard of Apollo 13 fame. It's an excellent companion piece to Apollo 13. Covers all of the manned Apollo missions including the first moon landing, and the earlier Apollo 1 tragedy a very interesting episode. Tom hosts each episode and stars in the last one. You will learn a LOT about the Apollo missions, and they start off briefly with the first Mercury mission with the first US astronaut into space (Alan Shepard), and a couple of the Gemini missions before getting to Apollo. Another space drama you may like is "The Right Stuff" (1983) about the formation of NASA and the Mercury missions. @ 23:25 Shorty after this point you'll see Tom Hanks shaking hands with the ship's captain dress in uniform whites. That is the _real_ Jim Lovell playing a cameo! 🖖😎
And because they had already covered the specifics of the Apollo 13 mission in the movie, the Apollo 13 episode of the mini-series covered the drama on the ground. It also hints at the turning point when news broadcasts stopped being about information and hard news, and became about drama and manufactured conflict, like the 'news' broadcasts we see today, which are less about "What happened?" and more about "How does this make you feel?"
Thanks liv .love this movie.. oh it worth remembering, the phone on watching this video is a little more advanced or equal to what they thery were using then . They were doing mathematics by hand because people didn't trust them ( computers) yet . Oh its completely true story .
The captain of the ship at the end that Tom Hanks shakes hands with is the real astronaut, Jim Lovell! as a cameo appearance, that Hanks portrays in the film.
Great reaction Liv! The Apollo program paved the way for space exploration and it goes to show how important these missions were and how far we how come because of them!
A nice view of another side of NASA, especially since you were looking for the women involved. 😉 It shows before the Apollo missions, when they first went to space.
That enormous rocket is all fuel. The actual ' rocket ' is just the little bit at the bottom. When the first stage burns all its fuel, it is jettisoned and the second stage takes over and does the same. The third stage is used the send the space craft to the moon.
Once the two stages have separated the command module and the lunar lander connect up. Two of the astronauts land on the moon while the remaining astronaut flys the command module.
The condensation was from the astronauts’ breathing in the cold. They had to shut everything down, including some circulation fans, and the breath clouds had no where to go.
There were 3 computers on each Apollo which controlled the spacecraft. The Saturn V rocket was flown by the LVDC (Launch Vehicle Digital Computer). It took the Apollo from the ground to earth orbit and then did the burn which sent them on a trajectory to the moon. The CSM (Command / Service Module) had its own computer to navigate once it detached from the Saturn V, and the Lunar Module had its own computer for descending to and ascending from the moon. The first stage of the Saturn rocket crashes into the Atlantic Ocean . In the past few years, Jeff Bezos recovered some of the engines from the ocean floor. The second stage burns up in the atmosphere like a meteor. The third stage is crashed into the moon. The Russians had the first woman in space in the early 1960s. The next woman to fly in space was Sally Ride, in the 1980s. Since then, many women have flown in space. The story of Apollo 13 is true, with only minor embellishments for the movie. The real Jim Lovell had a cameo role in the movie; he was the Captain of the aircraft carrier who shook the hands of the returning astronauts.
Great reaction. Fun to see you going in so blind to this. I'm sure you got a ton of comments about the tech of that time. At take off, the rocket is literally just that, they point it up, ignite the liquid oxygen fuel and GO. Most of the parts falling off would burn up on reentry. And, again, sure someone else told you. The computers they were using then had less power and memory then your smartphone. That's why you saw so many of them scribbling the math on paper to figure out how to do all this.
I remember watching this in theaters. As a kid I loved space flight and rockets...... but I was 7 in the movie theater and quickly decided I didn't want to. Especially after some documentary about the challenger came was on TV not too long after I saw this lol.
In actuality, there was for sure a woman who was working at nasa to save apollo 13. She went into labor so she took whatever paperwork she could with her to the hospital so she could keep working. She had a healthy baby boy. This baby grew up to be comedian Jack Black
Mercury program of manned flights, Gemini program of manned flights, Apollo spacecraft went from 1 to 20. The first manned flight was Apollo 7, the first around the moon was 8, 9 did the final tests of the lunar lander in Earth orbit, 10 went to the moon, went into orbit, used the lunar lander to fly and fully test navigation and the new computers in Moon orbit, and 11 made the first landing. 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 were moon landings, doing much more and for longer each time, then came the first US space station, Skylab, for which crews were carried by 17 and 18, 19 was kept ready for any rescue mission to Skylab that might have been needed, but went into a museum, as it was never used, and 20 flew on the Apollo-Soyuz test Project, a docking between US and Russian spacecraft. Then the Space Shuttle, later the flights to the International Space Station, and much more.
Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong) was the first one that landed on the moon 🌚, and I think there several others after that. The Space 🚀 race was only between the USA and the USSR; no other country had the wealth or technological ability to launch a lunar mission. Humanity didn't return to the Moon until Wallace & Gromit launched their cheese expedition around 1990.
The computers existing at the time that this took place were nothing like computers today. In fact you can buy a little hand held calculator at Walmart today that has more computing power than the computer aboard Apollo 13 back then.
I'm late to this party, but this is one of my favorite movies, so... 1:06 - There were *MANY* flights into space, all of which were designed to test the systems and people to be used. Apollo 1 was considered the greatest disaster in the space program. Gus Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee all lost their lives during a launch test. Walter Cronkite's opening monologue mentions this. And the scene you're watching is about Apollo 11, the first successful Moon landing. 2:48 - These attitudes from Marilyn and Jim Lovell are *very* accurate. She was superstitious about 13 being bad luck and Jim, along with the rest of NASA, simply saw 13 as "just a number." 4:16 - The argument that Jack Swigert wasn't qualified was built up for theatrics. He may not have had as much time in the simulator as the prime crew, but he was plenty qualified. 5:46 - This *REALLY* happened. Critics thought it was added to create drama, but Marilyn's ring actually slipped off her finger in the shower the morning of the launch. The motel staff was able to recover it from the trap. 7:13 - Ice. Condensation against the rocket's cooling systems. And Ken Mattingly is technically too close to the launch site in the cutaway scene. A rocket launch is a *VERY* noisy affair. 7:57 - Jim Lovell said this. He truly believed that they'd gotten off easy with a little glitch that wouldn't affect the mission. 8:47 - More drama for drama's sake. There was nothing wrong with Swigert's docking. 9:48 - They built a small set aboard the "vomit comet," NASA's vehicle for testing microgravity, and filmed several 20-second segments. The plane traveled in a parabolic arc, creating moments of suspended gravity. In those scenes where they didn't need to show their bodies as weightless, they would "float" on their toes. The plane was retired in 2004. 10:26 - While one of the most famous lines in movie history, the actual line was, "Houston, we've had a problem." 10:30 - The chaos unfolding on screen was more creative license by the film makers. If you listen to the actual recordings of the incident, the astronauts almost sound bored. 11:43 - Well, if you MUST know... Stress tests on the oxygen tank melted away the plastic coating of the wires INSIDE the tank. When the tanks were stirred, the wires sparked, igniting the liquid oxygen. There's A LOT more to the story, but that's the TL;DR version. 13:07 - This was April of 1970. There was no way to implement a rescue. 14:35 - The movie uses Ken Mattingly as an amalgam of numerous astronauts who worked on the power problem. This was easier than expanding the cast and confusing the audience with too many characters. 15:00 - As a guy who grew up very close to Grumman on Long Island, I'm sorely disappointed that they didn't think to design the LEM with the same CO2 filters as the CM. 15:33 - More creative license. They weren't going to waste their energy on an argument. 17:17 - It's condensation, Liv. Three men breathing in a confined, freezing space will do that. 18:46 - This was just one of several burns to adjust their trajectory, but showing the same thing repeatedly would have become too repetitious for audiences. Much of my knowledge about the mission comes from the movie commentary with Jim and Marilyn Lovell, as well as reading "Lost Moon," by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.
If you want to see a NASA film that features women, check out Hidden Figures. It's another true story, this time about three women mathematicians who worked at NASA as "computers' during the space race. They were the ones doing all of the various calculations that made space travel possible, and they did them mostly by hand since actual computers weren't all that advanced at the time. It's not quite as exciting as Apollo 13, but it does help to highlight the important contributions women made to the space program.
You are right. Not many women working as engineers these days. There is a great movie "hidden figures" about black women working as "human calculators" / mathematicians at NASA.
Good observation about the lack of women. There were women involved that played key roles, especially with computer programming and number crunching. In particular, Margaret Hamilton was a brilliant programmer and her fascinating story is on youtube.
So Apollo 13 was the third lunar landing mission. The concept of the American space program was that we'd build incrementally towards the lunar landing, acquiring each bit of needed experience one or two pieces at a time. With Mercury, it was about just reliably launching a man into space to begin with, communicating with him, receiving biomedical readouts, and working on how the relationship between capsule and Mission Control was best formulated. Gemini missions had two people, and were about longer duration (a week or so), maneuvering in Low and High Earth Orbit, and acquiring the knowledge needed for the mission sets needed to go to the Moon, most importantly the Extra-Vehicular Activity or EVA. That's when you go outside the vehicle and move around, and Buzz Aldrin (who had been a diver) excelled at it which put him at the front of the line for being on the Apollo missions...the missions designed to go to the Moon. But just as Mercury and Gemini were incremental overall, the programs (and Apollo was no different) were incremental in themselves. Apollo included two craft to make full test runs on: the cylindrical Command Module (CM) and the lander, or Lunar Module (LM, pronounced "Lem"). Apollo flights 7, 9 and 10 were test runs, working out the maneuvers and mission needs required for the lunar landing...to the point where Apollo 10 took a LM, detached with two crew, and was within landing range of the lunar surface. Fuel was the only issue. Apollo 13 was to be the third landing mission, and an H-class one: 11 and 12 were about just reliably landing...13 would be about hitting a pinpoint location in a rather rough area. Pinpoint landing capability would signal a much larger capacity for crew and cargo delivery, potentially allowing dual missions in the future...which NASA actually made planning work on. Thank you for sharing your reaction with us!
Slight correction While Apollo 11's mission was just to land, and given wide latitude to do so (basically, land wherever the ground looks good), it was Apollo 12 that tested pinpoint landing. Their target was a crater in the "Ocean of Storms" where an unmanned probe "Surveyor III" sat for a few years. Beyond their mission to prove pinpoint landing was possible, they were tasked with retrieving parts from Surveyor for testing long-term effects of the Lunar environment on such equipment Apollo 13's mission was the first proper geological study, hence the target of the Fra Mauro hills, which I believe was thought to be the site of an ancient volcano. Indeed, Apollo 13 was the first proper Lunar study mission, rather than just a test flight. Alas, this did not happen, and that mission was passed over to Apollo 14, which reached Fra Mauro... not exactly without incident, but nothing particularly crucial.
1:05 Apollo Program lasted for roughly twelve years, from 1960 to 1972. First (unmanned) flight was SA-1 in 1961. Apollo 1 (1967) was the one of the fire depicted at the beginning of the movie. No official Apollo 2 and 3. Apollo 4, 5, 6 were uncrewed test flight. First crew orbited Earth aboard Apollo 7 (1968). First crew around the Moon: Apollo 8 (also 1968). Apollo 9 and 10 (1969) were other test flights (with crews), the former around Earth, the latter around Moon. Apollo 11 (1969) was the first moon landing, followed by 12. After Apollo 13 and before the end of the program, we had other four moon landings: Apollo 14, 15, 16, 17, the last one in december 1972. In that period, Space was truly the next frontier. That WAS a space race. A race about international prestige but basically a military race. Be able to build a rocket that can send an astronaut or a satellite around Earth means that you can put a nuclear device aboard that rocket and hit your enemy with impunity. At the beginning of the Sixties, the Russians demonstred that capability, and the Americans no. So, Kennedy raised the bar and called for a new goal: a man on the Moon. And the Russians participated in the race. But their lunar rocket (the N1) never worked and soon they gived up.
Continuing with the rocket theme I highly recommend you check out 1999's "October Sky" with Jake Gyllenhaal. It's a great additional viewing to Apollo 13, to get more background at the history of rockets, Sputnik and the race against Russia.
7:39 - "the things that just broke off" Simple answer - big rockets are heavy. If you have just one giant rocket as a solid piece, that is an awful lot of weight to carry, requiring exponentially more fuel and thrust. The easiest way to solve this problem is have it in pieces. When one piece expends its fuel, you cut it loose, dropping all that dead weight and leaving a much smaller and lighter vehicle, so less fuel and thrust is required to push it. It takes those two full stages just to get the "trans-Lunar" stage into Earth Orbit. If the command module and lunar module were any larger, the launch rocket would be almost twice the size. Indeed, the original intended design had NINE of those big-ass engines, and was twice as thick. Probably would have doubled the cost too. As for where the parts end up The first stage (the largest) comes back down in the ocean. Even if it were to be recovered, the engines are so violent that it would cost more to fix them up again than to just build new ones. So if they don't sink, they're dismantled. The second stage doesn't quite make orbit, but is going fast enough that it burns up in the atmosphere. Most of it practically disintegrating. The third stage, as it already boosted to the moon (the part where they pulled the Lunar Module out) continues behind them, and is manually controlled from the ground to make a small course correction so it would impact the Lunar Surface. These impacts were studied with the seismic monitors that were left behind by Apollo 11 and 12. 10:00 - "zero gravity container" There is actually no such thing as a "zero gravity container". There is no way to cancel out gravity on the ground, certainly not with current technology or any feasible advances. However, there IS a way to cheat this, and its how many astronauts train. They use a modified KC-135 cargo plane, which they affectionately call the "Vomit Comet" What it does is fly up in large arcs. It goes up at a high angle and then makes a slow controlled dive. So for periods of about 30 seconds, the plane (and everything in it) is effectively "falling" Think skydiver in freefall. Whereas a skydiver would have wind rushing past them - inside the enclosed aircraft, you get no visual sensation of motion outside. So inside everything is falling with the plane and effectively simulates zero-gravity. So in an ingenious move on the part of Director Ron Howard, they built a mockup of the Command and Lunar modules inside the "Vomit Comet" and filmed all the zero-gravity scenes during these 30 second dives. Real life Astronaut Jim Lovell had said that Tom Hanks and crew logged more hours in the Vomit Comet than he himself would ever care to (even after training for FOUR flights) LOL
7:12 That's ice. The fuel tanks contained liquid oxygen (which is -297°F or -183°C) and liquid hydrogen (which is -423°F or -253°C, only a little above absolute zero). The tanks were insulated, but the outside of the rocket could still get quite cold, to the point that the humid Florida air would freeze on contact. The ice was then broken off at engine ignition due to the intense vibration of the rocket. 7:30 A rocket's total mass is one of the main factors in its efficiency (the lighter, the better). A rocket is really just the capsule, fuel, engines, and the tanks and supporting structures built around them, so when those tanks empty they become dead weight. To improve efficiency, orbital rockets are typically built using separate stages with their own fuel tanks and engines, and when a stage empties, it is jettisoned and the next set of engines takes over. The first stage crashed into the Atlantic, the second stage burned up in the atmosphere, and the third stage was intentionally crashed into the moon. 9:48 Yes, they filmed those scenes in special airplanes commonly nicknamed "Vomit Comets." They are generally cargo planes (nowadays, I know of a Boeing 727 and an Airbus A310) that have been customized to accomodate zero-G flight. This is achieved in the atmosphere by flying along a parabolic flight path, which gives about one and a half minutes of zero-G flight, followed by a minute and a half of 1.8-G flight as the plane climbs back to the point where it begins its parabolic flight again. It would then fly several cycles in a row like that. 21:33 It isn't on fire - as it hits the atmosphere at about 39,500 kmh (24,545 mph), it creates shock waves in the air ahead of it (kept at bay by a cushion of compressed air). Ahead of this shock wave is plasma heated to 5000°F (2760°C), which causes radio interference and hence the radio blackout. The heat shield is ablative, meaning it evaporates and carries away the heat with it. The interior is climate controlled and maintains a comfortable temperature throughout the reentry.
We shot people into space and landed on the moon before we invented the electronic calculator. The average smartphone has greater computing ability than NASA during the Apollo program. The history of the Space Race is absolutely wild. Fun fact about the CO2 filter workaround: it was actually designed by *one guy* while he was driving to work. Marilyn Lovell actually did drop her wedding ring down the shower drain, too, but she was able to retrieve it easily. They also actually had to do two burns to course-correct, but only one was included in the movie because the director felt that two would seem unbelievable.
They were practicing re-entry to Earth I believe in the simulator, at least when he failed and they "burned up". The moon doesn't have enough atmosphere to do that. It's crazy to me that a lot of younger people don't even know this happened, but perhaps that is also tied to the fact that they didn't even air their broadcast.
This type of rocket separates in stages. The purpose of this is to reduce the mass by removing any portions of the ship which are no longer needed. Most of the jettisoned equipment falls back to earth, typically burning up as it passes through the atmosphere at high speed. Some smaller pieces that separate later might remain in orbit either temporarily or permanently. There are countless leftover rocket parts that have been orbiting the planet as junk for decades. And yes, the scenes were filmed in zero gravity. In case you don’t know, this is done by flying a large cargo aircraft to a high altitude then diving abruptly down words. The people and items inside are in a zero gravity state, Which is more commonly known as freefall. I can only assume that this is quite the experience for the actors and film crew.
You asked why the rocket keep breaking apart. Saturn V was a multi-stage rocket. You can put a small payload above the atmosphere with a fairly small single stage rocket. But to put a heavy payload of men, a moon-landing vehicle, power, food, and everything else into orbit and then on a path to the moon, you need a large multistage rocket like the Saturn V. The fuel in the first stage put the ship into space, and then dropped off when it was no longer needed; the second stage boosted them into orbit, and then dropped off, and the third stage, the Saturn IV-B rocket, launched them toward the moon. The spent stages dropped into the Atlantic Ocean.
Enjoyed your reaction. You mentioned the lack of women in NASA. Check out the movie Hidden Figures. It’s about the contributions of black women to the space program. It’s really good.
For context on just how difficult space flight was with the tech at the time Apollo 13's accident, it would be a whole year before Intel would create the CPU microprocessor. A basic Nokia phone from the 80s and 90s was more powerful than the Lunar Module's guidance computer. This meant that - with the power constraints the _Aquarius_ was working with - any calculations on course correction had to be done by hand on the ground, then radioed back to the crew with _exact_ instructions on what power and for how long to burn the engine. This is near-verbatim from a video you can watch here on RUclips: "Three Men Lost in Space - The Apollo 13 Disaster".
Kevin Bacon did the interview where he was telling about the weightlessness. They were able to use what is known as the vomit comet at NASA. He said they made about 600 to 700 flights so they actually did experience weightlessness it was real.
Spaxe program or space race started with the x ( jet engine, breaking the sound barrier) then Gemini, and apollo. Programs. Id recommend the movie ( the right stuff ) 80s . Covered the early space race . Each of the missions lead to the moon . 13 failed but there were 17 apollo missions. ( 14 to 17 didn't land ) but telstar or satellite communications. Cable TV ect . All came from apollo. For example. Telstar( the first communication satellite) was developed to allow rarth to communicate with the space ships. It also allow for global tv broadcasts. In 1967 . ( the Beatles wrote and performed, all you need is love ) for the celebration. Live recording and performance. Actually every country in the world had time . But the uk . Gave there time to the Beatles.
Two other movies worth watching are The Right Stuff (1983), about early development of the space program in the U.S. and Hidden Figures, which is about three women in the early days of the space program..
Hi Liiv the white stuff coming off of the rocket at take off was ice it forms on the outside of the rocket because part of the rocket fuel is liquid oxygen and is very cold. The large Saturn 5 rockets used in the Apollo missions had three stages that dropped away on there journey into orbit. The sections fall back to earth and fall into the ocean. If something went wrong there was no one to go up and save them. The back up crews were in case someone got sick or like what happened to the crew that was supposed to go they were all replaced. Apollo 11 was the first moon landing the ones before just circled the moon without landing they went up to Apollo 17. To film the weightless scenes the actors went up in a special jet plane that fly's up high and then dives down making everything in the plane weightless. This had to be done many times to get the footage. The plane got the nick name...The vomit commit.
I strongly suggest listening to the actual audio of this event. The professionalism and calmness of the entire crew throughout is just incredible. So much so that using the actual voices of the crew in the film would have made for boring dialogue.
What’s interesting is that when this movie came out, everyone knew the ending. Because it was indeed a major event in American history. Despite that, the director still managed to make it suspenseful and the movie was a big hit. So it’s interesting seeing you coming in and not knowing anything. Another great movie starring Tom Hanks inspired by true events in American history. “A League of Their Own” (1992) And if you like some more space themed movies. “Gravity” (2013) “Gattaca” (1997) Would love to see your reactions for these fantastic film!
7:13 that stuff was ice. The tanks were filled with cryogenic fuel, at a temperature well below zero. Condensation on the rocket surface made a layer of ice that falls at the launch. 8:17 that is called "multistage rocket": you basically leave behind the spent engines and fuel tanks, and your vehicle becomes lighter and lighter, and easier to accelerate to the desired trajectory. This, even today, is the only viable method of space travel. The spent stages ended up in the ocean, burnt in the atmosphere or lost in space. They were single-use machines. More recently we have acquired the ability to recover and reuse rocket stages. Oh and the "abort" activate an auxilliary, small rocket that push the spacecraft and the crew away from the main rocket in case of a serious problem. Then, the small rocket detach and the spacecraft descends with parachutes. 19:37 Some of the most unvaluable tasks were entrusted to womens. For example, a woman, Margaret Hamilton, was the responsible of the entire programming of the Apollo Guidance Computer. A truly monumental work.
On the “No women in the astronaut program,” several things. The astronauts were drawn predominantly from the fighter pilot/test pilot community and, at that time, that was all male. Space travel is always dangerous. It’s been noted that your Apollo rocket or space shuttle has over one million moving parts sitting on several thousand tons on explosive fuel built by the lowest bidder on the contract. NASA tried to ‘humanize’ space by sending a female school teacher up on the space shuttle and it exploded killing the whole crew moments after launch.
At the time of Apollo I’m not aware of any specific rule against women being astronauts but I have no doubt that NASA, a publicly funded agency that sees its programs flourish under politicians like Kennedy and Johnson and wither at times of budgetary belt-tightening, the PR implications of having a woman blown to bits in front of the eyes of the world and what that might do to the agency and its abilities to carry out future missions cannot be discounted. There’s a fabulous HBO miniseries, ‘From the Earth to the Moon,’ that tells the story of the days when NASA lagged behind the Soviets in the Space Race. My favorite scene is when an eager beaver nerd engineer sticks his head in his harried supervisor’s office and inquires, “Do we have to bring the astronauts back alive…..??? Because, if we don’t, we can, like, go…… tomorrow…… if you want…..” Though clearly wanting to throw his stapler at the guy’s head, the put-upon supervisor in no uncertain terms, “NASA will never engage in one-way missions!”
On that, though, volunteers for one-way missions to Mars can be had. There are enough older pilots, scientists and engineers that we could mount a mission to, say, Mars with the understood expectation that they would not be coming home. There exists a population of people who, in their own estimation, have lived full lives, had children, even grandchildren, who’d volunteer for such a mission but NASA hasn’t acted on anything like that. From an engineering perspective, though, insisting on a safe return for the crew more than doubles the number of problems any such mission would have to solve. There’s a somewhat simplistic formula that for every pound that goes into space, requires, from memory, somebody please correct me, something like 22 pounds of fuel. More fuel, water, oxygen, food, etc to come home just ups the amount required to get you off the ground.
There are some interesting ideas to ease these calculations: set up a base on the moon with, I believe 1/9th or 1/7th the gravity, send unmanned supplies ahead to Mars to resupply the mission home, park supplies in Earth or Mars orbit but every contingency like that adds an element of risk to the mission. What if they land on Mars too far away from their supplies? What if they crash on the moon? On the flip-side, packing the whole mission in one vessel makes it heavier, requiring a bigger rocket with more moving parts and more explosive fuel.
Were they worried they would die? These astronauts were mostly military test pilots. They thrived in a career where every day they could have crashed in flames. From ask I've read about them, fear was not part of their makeup, they ask thought if they did what they were trained to do they would survive - death was something that happened to other guys. Yes, all men. If you looked at a space control room or the crews today, you would see a more diverse crowd. If you want to see how some women did contribute to the early space program you should check out "Hidden Figures"
Hey Liiv, the percentage of women in NASA us around 5-10%. So back in 1970 the number of women in the NASA space scientific staff would be less than .05%. It was the times and the educational system. It was a male domintated structure. However, if you wish to see female side of things you should check out the movie, "Hidden Figures". It's really amazing.
for the zero G scenes they put the set inside a plane nicknamed the Vomit Comet which does these parabolic curves up & down. when you reach the peak you get 30 whole seconds of weightlessness then you sit down for a minute & wait for the next peak. that or they do it with SFX.
Parts of the rocket that separate from the spacecraft fall through the atmosphere and burn up on the way down. The Chinese were recently criticized for not ensuring that the debris would burn up. Pieces of space junk landed in the Pacific near the Philippines. Great job.
Some of the zero gravity scenes was filmed in the vomit comet, an aircraft designed to fall from a high level to a lower for 30 seconds at a time, creating freefall. A KC-35A I believe.
You should do "Apollo 11", which is all footage of the actual first landing on the moon. I was 2 years old when that happened, and remember (vaguely) my family watching that on television. It's amazing the evolution of technology since then. Humans are heading back to the moon within the next few years. You can keep up with what they are doing in preparation by watching NASA's channel.
I would actually instead recommend the HBO Miniseries "From The Earth to The Moon", which not only covers the landing in the Apollo 11 episode, but all the steps needed to make it work and get there. Plus, you get to know all the colorful personalities in the Astronaut corps, particularly the "New Nine" like Lovell, Conrad, Borman, McDivitt, and of course Armstrong. I just wish John Young got a bit more prominence, as he is the only one there who gets more flight experience than Lovell, both before and after Apollo. But then, they were ALL legends, even those who flew only once.
In order to get the astronauts into space, it had to be done in stages. That's why you'll hear people refer to the Saturn V rocket as a "staged rocket." There wasn't a single rocket big enough or powerful enough to reach orbit in one go, so it had to be done in stages. As each stage was used up (served it's purpose) it would be jettisoned, and the next stage would go into action, getting them a little closer to orbit. The parts that got jettisoned are still out there, orbiting the Earth to this very day!
Just remember at this time in history, the computers that were used to get Apollo 11 to the moon was the size of an entire room and had less computing power than a regular modern smart phone. Also, that thing they built for the filter; I think they have that thing in a museum somewhere, unless I’m wrong. This was a time when women still weren’t “allowed” to be employed in this line of work cuz it was still when people thought women couldn’t be qualified for it. They always land in the ocean, unless they use the other landing zone that’s out in the middle of the wilderness
You should go watch the actual footage and pictures it's absolutely crazy I mean this movie was so accurate it's unreal it's probably the best space movie I've ever made as far as everything being completely accurate
U gotta appreciate the main leader in the station played by Ed Harris, was so calm in this situation and calming others too to focus on the job. That’s a mark of a true leader 👍👍
Ron Howard did a brilliant job in making this film, the Howard family did a great job. The Eecom guy "from my seat this is the last option" is Ron's Brother , Clint. Rance Howard played the family minister, Ron's father. And Ron's mother Jean Howard played Blanch Lovell. Well done all.
Ron Howard went above and beyond. NASA gave full permission for them to use the old Apollo MOCR (mission operations control room) which still exists (albeit is not in current operational use, rather is preserved for history sake). But Ron wanted greater control over the camera, and the ability to remove walls to get large camera cranes in for certain shots. So instead, he had the production team build an entirely new recreation of MOCR from scratch. The recreation was so spot-on perfect that Astronaut David Scott (Apollo 15) who was one of the technical directors on the film was completely fooled. By the end of a shooting day, he would instinctually go for a door that would have led to an exit in the real-life Mission Control, only to find it was either a false door, or would lead to the sound stage, needing a minute to remember he wasn't on the real thing LOL. Blanch's scene is one of my favorites in the whole movie - "Don't you worry, Honey. If they could get a washin' machine to fly,... my Jimmy could land it!"
The space ship seperate in 3 pieces, first is the gas tank second is the engines, the last is the part with crew inside and actualy is the piece who turn the astronaut back to earth. Now in the movie we see one more part and that is the ship for landing in Moon.
Gene Kranz was "Mission Control" at NASA from the '60s and '70s. When they cast Ed Harris as "Gene", I don't think there has been a more perfect physical representation by an actor of a Real Person. Ever.
Space in these vehicles was extraordinarily cramped, in large part because the rocket fuel required is very heavy and takes up a TON of space. A rocket is really the small astronaut compartment(s) sitting atop a great big missile. The crews consisted of three men (always men....despite testing that had been done which indicated women would be able to tolerate the rigors of space travel as well as - or even better than - the men). As for the weightless scenes, those were filmed in a special airplane - the "vomit comet" (I think you can imagine from whence it came by that nickname....lol). Cast and crew would ride up quite high into the atmosphere and then the plane would get turned back toward the ground and "fall" at a speed that matches - and therefore cancels - the acceleration of gravity for a short stretch of time. And these missions ALWAYS ended with the astronauts in that tiny pod, splashing down in the ocean. That module is the only heat-shielded compartment available to them...and the water provides for a relatively soft landing and an instant cool-down, I'd imagine. lol
There weren't any women in the control room at NASA. Why would you even ask such a question? Is this how we look at everything now? These were what were referred to as "steely eyed missile men". Not particularly "emotionally intelligent" but something far more important. They were competent. They were determined. They stayed on point and used every ounce of intelligence and skill they had towards achieving a goal. Sorry for the "man-splaining".
This movie is based on a true story. Up to Apollo 11 they were just doing practice and moon flyovers. On Apollo 11 they did the first landing of a man on the moon and on Apollo 12-Apollo 18 they did more lunar landings and brought some moon rocks back,
one correction - Apollo 17 Apollo 18 was cancelled, as they mention at the end of the film. Fred Haise was supposed to be LMP on that one. What the film didn't mention was, though Haise never flew the Shuttle into space, he was piloting many of its approach and landing tests. So, unlike those who flew the Shuttle into space, Fred Haise was one of the few who actually got to be at the helm of the Enterprise :3
Women stayed home and raised children, cooked meals and kept the house clean. It was brfore women's lib gained popularity. Also before prices were so high both parents had to work just to make ends meet.
You're right. There were no women in the control rooms. No people of color either. This was brought up at the time and NASA was accused of discrimination for it tgis was the explanation. The positions in the control room were highly technical and those holding those positions needed specific degrees, often several of them. At that point in history, women and people of color just didn't take the necessary courses and get the requisite degrees. Watching these scenes you can see where certain skills and knowledge would be required. When universities were audited to see who was taking what courses it became clear that only white men were in those classes. It looks like discrimination, but it wasn't.
There was one female engineer in the control room for the Apollo 11 launch. Her name is JoAnn Morgan, she was the first, and I think for some time, the only, woman present in the control room during a critical mission phase (when the doors are closed to anyone else). She is seen in the 2019 Apollo 11 documentary (and its trailer).
Re-watch the end scenes of them getting of the helicopter onto the aircraft carrier. There is an officer in whites (white uniform) that shakes Tom Hanks hand. That is the REAL Jim Lovell in a cameo. According to Jim Lovell (the last surviving member of the Apollo 13 crew at the time of the movies making), it was "mostly accurate" but some of the interpersonal stuff (arguements, etc) were "overly dramatized". They didn't have a shouting match in the command module, etc... Otherwise, it's a VERY close to reality movie.
Im sure others have answered most of these already but answere your questions in the orders I noticed them: there were 17 Apollo missions, Apollo 11 was the first to actually land (the rest of 12-17 were supposed to land as well but obviously 13 never did. Alot of the earlier missions werent actually launches they were ground tests and the like (I think from memory Apollo 6 or 7 was the first to actually fly). The white stuff falling off the rocket during launch is ice (most of teh rocket is a big ass fuel tank and the fuel is mostly liquid oxygen and hydrogen so the outside of the rocket even insulated gets pretty damn cold. All the bits that fall off during the launch process are called 'stages' esentially its designed so lower stages of the rockets burn all their fuel up then the whole segment detaches so the remaining rocket is much much lighter, it then burns its engines to use its fuel up and so on, the VAST majoirty of the rocket is just get toe little tiny ship on top into orbit and on its way to the moon! As for what happens to the other bits, they all burn up on reentry to the atmosphere. As for filming in 0 G you cant just make a zero gravity chamber sadly, thats still very much the realms of science fiction at the moment! What they did was build a set on NASA's 0G training plane which is a big old empty airliner that goes into a rapid dive from high altitude and everything on board is basically in free fall so it simulates 0 g, they did that for most of the 0 g filming sequences on the movie (whcih is INSANE effort to go for a movie! They just dont make em like this any more eh? :P)
as for the space suits they couldnt really: 1) theyre rather large and bulky and they cant really operate the ship in them, 2) they use power and resources to keem them warm not just a matter of insulation (power and resources they didnt have.
as for there being no women... it was 1969 there were not alot of women working in the sciences (there weresome mind you the person who wrote the software that ran the apollo missions was a woman for one (and she got next to no recognition sadly :()
Thank you for all your comments explaining the technical stuff, I definitely felt way out of my depth in regards to my space knowledge with this movie! An amazing job done by all to get them home safely
Just a summary, there were 6 successful landings in the Apollo program, but 7 attempts. Apollo 13 would have been the 3rd landing were it not for the disaster, so Apollo 14 ended up being the 3rd landing. The near tragedy of Apollo 13 influenced decisions that caused the ending of the Apollo program. The last official mission was the joint US-Soviet docking mission circa 1975.
Each Apollo mission of lunar landings was generally more ambitious and lengthy than earlier ones. By the final lunar mission of Apollo 17 in 1972, they were using the lunar rovers to cover greater distances and had the longest time on the surface.
You mentioned the lack of women. This was 1970. NASA is a very different place today.
I'm not going to read all of the comments, I'm just curious if you knew this was based on the real Apollo 13 mission.
Not sure if anyone really dove into it yet. Each mission had objectives to complete in order to slowly piece together what future missions would have to do
Mercury objective 1: reach space to prove its possible
Mercury objective 2: reach and maintain orbital velocity
Gemini objective 1: test maneuvering in space and changing orbit altitudes
Gemini objective 2: EVA (extra-vehicular activity), also known as spacewalking
Gemini objective 3: test fuel cells, which generate power by mixing Hydrogen and Oxygen, allowing longer duration flight than traditional batteries
Gemini objective 4: rendezvous, two craft finding each other in orbit and holding position with each other without flying apart
Gemini objective 5: docking, connecting two spacecraft together in orbit, safe and stable
Gemini objective 6: long-duration spaceflight, proving humans could survive and operate in weightlessness for up to 14 days
Apollo objective 1: test the new 3-man Command Module
Apollo objective 2: test the Lunar Module in Earth Orbit
Apollo objective 3: test making the maneuver from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit, known as TLI (trans-Lunar injection) and come back home
Apollo objective 4: test all the safety and abort procedures for both the Command Module and the Lunar Module, to make sure they all work properly.
Every one of these objectives had to be completed successfully before they could finally give the go-ahead for a Lunar landing. And even then, further objectives followed:
Apollo objective 5: land on the moon, just to prove it is possible
Apollo objective 6: land at a specific point to prove precise touchdown is possible. This would be required, if any true exploration could be accomplished
Apollo objective 7: land at ever-tougher landing points, in different orbits, among high peaks and deep valleys.
Apollo objective 8: the most important objective and the reason for going - study the moon, learn how it came to be, get actual answers about what it is and how it formed rather than just speculation.
True story, the technical details and events as they happened in the mission were spot on, some of the private human interactions were dramatized of course. I don't think the astronauts ever lost their cool like that in the capsule.
insane that this is a true story and I knew nothing about it! So glad I watched and now know these astronauts stories :)
There's a brilliant Podcast from the BBC, available on RUclips, called "13 minutes to the Moon" that did 2 series, first about Apollo 11 Moon landings and second about Apollo 13. Features Interviews and technical info about the Apollo missions and how it all worked.
@@liivreacts It is indeed insane that you did not know.:P
You know about Apollo 11, right?
Not quite spot on.
The reverse flow of power was something they knew about and had trained with. I
The air filter makeshift thing was also something they had made before the flight and there was a well known and understood procedure to make it, they knew that the filters didn't cross over from the LEM to the CM.
There are others but it's still a great film that is 70% true.. . But not spot on.
@@liivreacts This move shows some of the problems they had. But they had many more.
Actually, not surviving re-entry did happen to one of the Space Shuttle flights. Back in 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia's wing was damaged by debris during launch. I always watched launches and returns when I could as I have always had a fascination with space flight. Never being remotely smart enough to be an Astronaut, I had to settle for what I could. But this group never made it back. It was so heartbreaking. That along with the horror of watching 1986's Space Shuttle Challenger blow apart on live television 73 seconds after launch was just horrific. I think I cried for several days after and still do whenever I see that footage. What made it even more heartbreaking is it was the first time they ever took a non-astronaut up with them. A teacher named Christa McAuliffe. Her school and many schools across the country allowed their students to watch the launch, only to see first-hand the tragedy.
There's gonna be plenty of comments on the technical stuff, but I wanted to mention Jim Lovell's comment about how the experience changed him, which was "Crises don't bother me anymore. I just look at them and figure out how to get out of them, and that's it." Makes sense after being in a dead spaceship heading *away* from Earth. What a way to cultivate calm!
Hey Liiv, "If you're ever a shrimp boat captain. That's the day I became an astronaut!"
Well lieutenant Dan kept his promise in "Apollo 13"
Each Apollo mission was about meeting different milestones for getting to the moon.
- Apollo 1 was a launchpad test (which had the fire that killed three astronauts)
- 2-6 were unmanned tests
- 7 went around the Earth
- 8 and 9 went around the moon
- 10 was like a dress rehearsal for landing on the moon
- 11 was the mission that actually landed on the moon
All the ones after 11 were more or less research missions
Actually Apollo 7 tested the CM in Earth orbit (no LM), Apollo 8 circles the moon and didn't have a LM either. Apollo 9 was to test the docking and undocking the LM from the CM and to see if the LM could actually fly, all in Earth orbit. Apollo 10 was a test run for Apollo 11, go to the moon and undock the LM, and do everything BUT land on the moon. Then 11 and 12 landed on the moon. 13 was this movie. Then 14-17 also landed on the moon. I also agree with the others that the HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon" - a 12-episode series covers all the Apollo missions is wonderful!
Apollo 9 was an earth orbit manned test of the Lunar Module.
11 and 12 were basically test flights
11 to prove landing on the moon was possible
12 to prove that you could adequately pinpoint target a landing spot (in this case, an unmanned probe already on the surface)
13 was supposed to be the first proper geological exploratory mission... but never made it to the surface
14 had to accomplish 13's objectives
15, 16, and 17 all had an upgraded Lunar Module, for not only longer stays on the surface, but the Lunar Rover to explore much more expansive areas. At the same time, the upgraded Service Module had experiments packages of its own, not only for study in Lunar Orbit, but while en route to and from the Moon as well. Though even among spaceflight fans, very few remember this part of the mission profile.
It should also be noted that four other Apollo spacecraft flew after 17
three visited the Skylab space laboratory (built from an unused Saturn IV-B booster stage)
the final Apollo to fly was in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, where the American Apollo docked in space with Russian Soyuz 19, in what would be the symbolic end to the space race, not with a victory gloat, but with a friendly handshake.
@garybrockie6327 That task was supposed to have been done by Apollo 8, with Apollo 9 being a high speed reentry test of the heat shield from high earth orbit - but the LM wasn't ready by the time Apollo 8 was supposed to fly. So NASA had 8 & 9 swap missions (and crews, who'd trained for missions, not flight numbers). And since intelligence reports indicated the Soviets were preparing for a manned flight during the upcoming lunar launch window, it was decided to test the reentry procedure with an actual return from the moon instead of a simulated one. And it got us there 1st.
It was 1970. NASA had not invented females yet.
lol
Watch “From the earth to the moon“ if you want to understand the Apollo program, and it was made by the same people. It’s shocking that an adult knows so little about something that was so important to world history.
Shocking? I call it absolutely infuriating. The only thing worse than the fact so few know about it is the fact there are actually people who not only believe it was fake, but are actually angry at the astronauts and engineers who did it. Even typing that churns my stomach so hard
The unity that came to the world during the Apollo 13 crisis was amazing. People across the world were praying for the astronauts. When it came time for re-entry, the Soviet Union actually sent 4 ships to the splashdown area to help in any way they could in case they were needed
It was the Finest Hour of all mankind and the best reason for Americans to be proud of their country. Writing as an European.
20:35 good catch. 👍🏼
i highly recommend Hidden Figures (2017) to explore that more.
You mentioned that you didn't see any woman at NASA !
This is a must-see movie for everyone...
Hidden Figures (2016) or 2017
They were indeed in zero g, by using a large jet aircraft (nicknamed the "vomit comet") flying an arc up and then down (like a giant roller coaster) repeatedly to create zero g for about 25 seconds at a time. Astronauts use it for training.
Technically they were in free fall, not zero g. It just creates the illusion of being in zero g because of how you're moving relative to the plane around you.
@@KorAsek453 Technically, astronauts in orbit are in free fall as they orbit the Earth and are actually falling (and rising) but missing the Earth's curved surface by virtue of horizontal speed. If the craft could hold a stationary position 200 miles (typical orbital altitude) above a point (minus the Earth's own rotation) astronauts would experience close to full body weight . And even on the way to the moon, the spacecraft is still essentially in an orbit around the sun, so it is also in free fall.
Zero g simply describes the condition or experience of weightlessness while free fall better describes the process by which that happens. Whether in an orbiting spacecraft or in the plane flying parabolas (think of it as a mini parabolic orbit but below escape velocity), both those terms are valid.
For a deeper dive into the early stages of NASA:s space program, check out The Right Stuff (1983), starring (among many others) Ed Harris who played the flight director here in Apollo 13. :) It starts off with the test pilots trying to break mach 1 (the speed of sound), the selection process of the very first NASA astronauts, and the first few space flights, with the space race against the Soviet Union as the movie's backdrop. Just a great movie all around, and you get an education at the same time!
The Right Stuff is unfortunately a little too dramatized. The history of it one has to take with a grain of salt, as nearly everything but the basics was false.
"From The Earth to The Moon" is a far better avenue for discovering the history of NASA and Apollo, but even that is missing quite a lot.
Hey Liv! Great reaction! It was actually interesting to see a reaction from a non-American who knows very little about the space program. This is definitely based on true events. The Gemini-Apollo program was a massive undertaking in the 1960s, with the US racing the Russians to the moon. I think this a super interesting part of history, and the Apollo 13 event, in particular, was a dramatic demonstration of the ingenuity of those involved. If you're interested, I'd encourage you to seek out Gene Kranz: Failure is Not an Option, which is a lecture he gave on the Apollo 13 incident. First Man is also a very good movie that chronicles the life of Neil Armstrong, who was the first to walk on the moon.
There is also a movie made a year or two ago called "Apollo 11", that uses actual footage (restored) and it's really well done.
The white chunks that fell off the rocket when it launched were ice. The fuel in the rocket is extremely cold and condensation from the outside air freezes on it. The vibration during launch breaks it off.
Awesome reaction, dear. Thank you!
One of the best impressions of this I've seen was the finale of Wings of Honneamise (Royal Space Force), which makes the effort of showing the ice forming as the tanks are fueled, so once the launch begins, its immediately clear that its the ice that's breaking off. Plus its a beautifully animated scene (and movie overall) and definitely worth a watch for any early spaceflight enthusiast, whether you enjoy anime or not.
Several people have suggested “The Right Stuff” - another space program movie based on true events. Yes! That is one amazing movie. Terrific cast, led by an impossibly handsome and intense Sam Shepard. He plays Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier.
(About Shepard: In addition to being a profound and charismatic actor, he was also a genius writer, a director, a musician (he collaborated with Bob Dylan), and a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright. Over 60 plays. Many rank him alongside O'Neill as America's greatest 20th century playwright. Amazing. Nobody should be trusted with so much talent. It's just not fair.)
The rest of the cast of 'The Right Stuff' includes Ed Harris as John Glenn, the first American ever to orbit the earth. (Here in 'Apollo 13' Harris played Gene Kranz, the guy in charge of Mission Control.) There are also Dennis Quaid, Barbara Hershey, Scott Glenn, etc, etc. Lots of wonderful actors you'll see in many other movies.
Don't be put off by the film's length. it grabs you from beginning to end. It tells a giant of a story, about the beginnings of the NASA manned space flight program. Like 'Apollo 13', it's about the technical and human challenges they all faced -- the pilots, astronauts, scientists, and their families. There's a good deal of humor as well. It's largely accurate (with one big controversial exception). Highly recommended.
There were six Apollo missions that landed on the moon. Apollo 11 (the first one and seen here at 1:36), Apollo 12, and 14 through 17. If this history interests you watch the "From the Earth to the Moon" (1995) docudrama miniseries also produced by Tom Hanks and Ron Howard of Apollo 13 fame. It's an excellent companion piece to Apollo 13. Covers all of the manned Apollo missions including the first moon landing, and the earlier Apollo 1 tragedy a very interesting episode. Tom hosts each episode and stars in the last one. You will learn a LOT about the Apollo missions, and they start off briefly with the first Mercury mission with the first US astronaut into space (Alan Shepard), and a couple of the Gemini missions before getting to Apollo.
Another space drama you may like is "The Right Stuff" (1983) about the formation of NASA and the Mercury missions.
@ 23:25 Shorty after this point you'll see Tom Hanks shaking hands with the ship's captain dress in uniform whites. That is the _real_ Jim Lovell playing a cameo! 🖖😎
And because they had already covered the specifics of the Apollo 13 mission in the movie, the Apollo 13 episode of the mini-series covered the drama on the ground. It also hints at the turning point when news broadcasts stopped being about information and hard news, and became about drama and manufactured conflict, like the 'news' broadcasts we see today, which are less about "What happened?" and more about "How does this make you feel?"
My mom’s parents watched the Apollo 13 launch on TV when they were in high school.
Thanks liv .love this movie.. oh it worth remembering, the phone on watching this video is a little more advanced or equal to what they thery were using then . They were doing mathematics by hand because people didn't trust them ( computers) yet . Oh its completely true story .
The captain of the ship at the end that Tom Hanks shakes hands with is the real astronaut, Jim Lovell! as a cameo appearance, that Hanks portrays in the film.
Great reaction Liv! The Apollo program paved the way for space exploration and it goes to show how important these missions were and how far we how come because of them!
Enjoyed your reaction. For the role, albeit quite limited, of women in the early space program, I recommend the movie Hidden Figures.
Another fine film.
A nice view of another side of NASA, especially since you were looking for the women involved. 😉 It shows before the Apollo missions, when they first went to space.
That enormous rocket is all fuel. The actual ' rocket ' is just the little bit at the bottom. When the first stage burns all its fuel, it is jettisoned and the second stage takes over and does the same. The third stage is used the send the space craft to the moon.
Once the two stages have separated the command module and the lunar lander connect up. Two of the astronauts land on the moon while the remaining astronaut flys the command module.
I watched it on TV when I was A kid.
The condensation was from the astronauts’ breathing in the cold. They had to shut everything down, including some circulation fans, and the breath clouds had no where to go.
Apollo 11 was the first manned flight to land on the moon. Armstrong was the first man to step on the moon with his famous words.
That someone had to explain that to anyone older than 8 years, makes me sad.
There were 3 computers on each Apollo which controlled the spacecraft. The Saturn V rocket was flown by the LVDC (Launch Vehicle Digital Computer). It took the Apollo from the ground to earth orbit and then did the burn which sent them on a trajectory to the moon. The CSM (Command / Service Module) had its own computer to navigate once it detached from the Saturn V, and the Lunar Module had its own computer for descending to and ascending from the moon. The first stage of the Saturn rocket crashes into the Atlantic Ocean . In the past few years, Jeff Bezos recovered some of the engines from the ocean floor. The second stage burns up in the atmosphere like a meteor. The third stage is crashed into the moon. The Russians had the first woman in space in the early 1960s. The next woman to fly in space was Sally Ride, in the 1980s. Since then, many women have flown in space. The story of Apollo 13 is true, with only minor embellishments for the movie. The real Jim Lovell had a cameo role in the movie; he was the Captain of the aircraft carrier who shook the hands of the returning astronauts.
yup, that `whole thing' that is `moving the rocket out' is called a crawler.
The crawler takes the rocket from the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) to the launchpad.
23:48 🤣🤣🤣 "i thought they were going to be on the parachutes, not the ship."
Great reaction. Fun to see you going in so blind to this. I'm sure you got a ton of comments about the tech of that time. At take off, the rocket is literally just that, they point it up, ignite the liquid oxygen fuel and GO. Most of the parts falling off would burn up on reentry. And, again, sure someone else told you. The computers they were using then had less power and memory then your smartphone. That's why you saw so many of them scribbling the math on paper to figure out how to do all this.
I remember watching this in theaters. As a kid I loved space flight and rockets...... but I was 7 in the movie theater and quickly decided I didn't want to. Especially after some documentary about the challenger came was on TV not too long after I saw this lol.
Hell, I remember the Pog (remember those?) container shaped like the rocket that Burger King was selling.
@@Gundam944 I didn't get my pogs at burger king
13:15 it’s that moment they warned you about in school when trigonometry and algebra will save your life!
In actuality, there was for sure a woman who was working at nasa to save apollo 13. She went into labor so she took whatever paperwork she could with her to the hospital so she could keep working. She had a healthy baby boy. This baby grew up to be comedian Jack Black
Mercury program of manned flights, Gemini program of manned flights, Apollo spacecraft went from 1 to 20.
The first manned flight was Apollo 7, the first around the moon was 8, 9 did the final tests of the lunar lander in Earth orbit, 10 went to the moon, went into orbit, used the lunar lander to fly and fully test navigation and the new computers in Moon orbit, and 11 made the first landing.
12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 were moon landings, doing much more and for longer each time, then came the first US space station, Skylab, for which crews were carried by 17 and 18, 19 was kept ready for any rescue mission to Skylab that might have been needed, but went into a museum, as it was never used, and 20 flew on the Apollo-Soyuz test Project, a docking between US and Russian spacecraft.
Then the Space Shuttle, later the flights to the International Space Station, and much more.
Apollo 11 (Neil Armstrong) was the first one that landed on the moon 🌚, and I think there several others after that. The Space 🚀 race was only between the USA and the USSR; no other country had the wealth or technological ability to launch a lunar mission. Humanity didn't return to the Moon until Wallace & Gromit launched their cheese expedition around 1990.
The computers existing at the time that this took place were nothing like computers today. In fact you can buy a little hand held calculator at Walmart today that has more computing power than the computer aboard Apollo 13 back then.
I'm late to this party, but this is one of my favorite movies, so...
1:06 - There were *MANY* flights into space, all of which were designed to test the systems and people to be used. Apollo 1 was considered the greatest disaster in the space program. Gus Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee all lost their lives during a launch test. Walter Cronkite's opening monologue mentions this. And the scene you're watching is about Apollo 11, the first successful Moon landing.
2:48 - These attitudes from Marilyn and Jim Lovell are *very* accurate. She was superstitious about 13 being bad luck and Jim, along with the rest of NASA, simply saw 13 as "just a number."
4:16 - The argument that Jack Swigert wasn't qualified was built up for theatrics. He may not have had as much time in the simulator as the prime crew, but he was plenty qualified.
5:46 - This *REALLY* happened. Critics thought it was added to create drama, but Marilyn's ring actually slipped off her finger in the shower the morning of the launch. The motel staff was able to recover it from the trap.
7:13 - Ice. Condensation against the rocket's cooling systems. And Ken Mattingly is technically too close to the launch site in the cutaway scene. A rocket launch is a *VERY* noisy affair.
7:57 - Jim Lovell said this. He truly believed that they'd gotten off easy with a little glitch that wouldn't affect the mission.
8:47 - More drama for drama's sake. There was nothing wrong with Swigert's docking.
9:48 - They built a small set aboard the "vomit comet," NASA's vehicle for testing microgravity, and filmed several 20-second segments. The plane traveled in a parabolic arc, creating moments of suspended gravity. In those scenes where they didn't need to show their bodies as weightless, they would "float" on their toes. The plane was retired in 2004.
10:26 - While one of the most famous lines in movie history, the actual line was, "Houston, we've had a problem."
10:30 - The chaos unfolding on screen was more creative license by the film makers. If you listen to the actual recordings of the incident, the astronauts almost sound bored.
11:43 - Well, if you MUST know... Stress tests on the oxygen tank melted away the plastic coating of the wires INSIDE the tank. When the tanks were stirred, the wires sparked, igniting the liquid oxygen. There's A LOT more to the story, but that's the TL;DR version.
13:07 - This was April of 1970. There was no way to implement a rescue.
14:35 - The movie uses Ken Mattingly as an amalgam of numerous astronauts who worked on the power problem. This was easier than expanding the cast and confusing the audience with too many characters.
15:00 - As a guy who grew up very close to Grumman on Long Island, I'm sorely disappointed that they didn't think to design the LEM with the same CO2 filters as the CM.
15:33 - More creative license. They weren't going to waste their energy on an argument.
17:17 - It's condensation, Liv. Three men breathing in a confined, freezing space will do that.
18:46 - This was just one of several burns to adjust their trajectory, but showing the same thing repeatedly would have become too repetitious for audiences.
Much of my knowledge about the mission comes from the movie commentary with Jim and Marilyn Lovell, as well as reading "Lost Moon," by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.
Great reaction Liv. If you want to see the women working at NASA a few years before the events of this film, watch "Hidden Figures."
If you want to see a NASA film that features women, check out Hidden Figures. It's another true story, this time about three women mathematicians who worked at NASA as "computers' during the space race. They were the ones doing all of the various calculations that made space travel possible, and they did them mostly by hand since actual computers weren't all that advanced at the time. It's not quite as exciting as Apollo 13, but it does help to highlight the important contributions women made to the space program.
Loving your reactions, glad others filled you in on the technical stuff, it really is an amazing piece of history, also subscribed. Keep it up :)
You are right. Not many women working as engineers these days. There is a great movie "hidden figures" about black women working as "human calculators" / mathematicians at NASA.
Truth be told Liv your video reactions are getting better and better. Mod approves and is very proud for you
Very cool... Watching someone witness a true historical event for the first time...! Loved it. Thanks...
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Good observation about the lack of women. There were women involved that played key roles, especially with computer programming and number crunching. In particular, Margaret Hamilton was a brilliant programmer and her fascinating story is on youtube.
The movie _Hidden Figures_ is based on the lives of several of the women who worked on the Apollo program.
Thank you for sharing this. I strongly recommend The Right Stuff (1983) which is also a "space movie" and just as enjoyable.
So Apollo 13 was the third lunar landing mission.
The concept of the American space program was that we'd build incrementally towards the lunar landing, acquiring each bit of needed experience one or two pieces at a time.
With Mercury, it was about just reliably launching a man into space to begin with, communicating with him, receiving biomedical readouts, and working on how the relationship between capsule and Mission Control was best formulated.
Gemini missions had two people, and were about longer duration (a week or so), maneuvering in Low and High Earth Orbit, and acquiring the knowledge needed for the mission sets needed to go to the Moon, most importantly the Extra-Vehicular Activity or EVA.
That's when you go outside the vehicle and move around, and Buzz Aldrin (who had been a diver) excelled at it which put him at the front of the line for being on the Apollo missions...the missions designed to go to the Moon.
But just as Mercury and Gemini were incremental overall, the programs (and Apollo was no different) were incremental in themselves.
Apollo included two craft to make full test runs on: the cylindrical Command Module (CM) and the lander, or Lunar Module (LM, pronounced "Lem").
Apollo flights 7, 9 and 10 were test runs, working out the maneuvers and mission needs required for the lunar landing...to the point where Apollo 10 took a LM, detached with two crew, and was within landing range of the lunar surface. Fuel was the only issue.
Apollo 13 was to be the third landing mission, and an H-class one: 11 and 12 were about just reliably landing...13 would be about hitting a pinpoint location in a rather rough area.
Pinpoint landing capability would signal a much larger capacity for crew and cargo delivery, potentially allowing dual missions in the future...which NASA actually made planning work on.
Thank you for sharing your reaction with us!
Slight correction
While Apollo 11's mission was just to land, and given wide latitude to do so (basically, land wherever the ground looks good), it was Apollo 12 that tested pinpoint landing. Their target was a crater in the "Ocean of Storms" where an unmanned probe "Surveyor III" sat for a few years. Beyond their mission to prove pinpoint landing was possible, they were tasked with retrieving parts from Surveyor for testing long-term effects of the Lunar environment on such equipment
Apollo 13's mission was the first proper geological study, hence the target of the Fra Mauro hills, which I believe was thought to be the site of an ancient volcano. Indeed, Apollo 13 was the first proper Lunar study mission, rather than just a test flight. Alas, this did not happen, and that mission was passed over to Apollo 14, which reached Fra Mauro... not exactly without incident, but nothing particularly crucial.
1:05 Apollo Program lasted for roughly twelve years, from 1960 to 1972. First (unmanned) flight was SA-1 in 1961. Apollo 1 (1967) was the one of the fire depicted at the beginning of the movie. No official Apollo 2 and 3. Apollo 4, 5, 6 were uncrewed test flight. First crew orbited Earth aboard Apollo 7 (1968). First crew around the Moon: Apollo 8 (also 1968). Apollo 9 and 10 (1969) were other test flights (with crews), the former around Earth, the latter around Moon. Apollo 11 (1969) was the first moon landing, followed by 12. After Apollo 13 and before the end of the program, we had other four moon landings: Apollo 14, 15, 16, 17, the last one in december 1972.
In that period, Space was truly the next frontier. That WAS a space race. A race about international prestige but basically a military race. Be able to build a rocket that can send an astronaut or a satellite around Earth means that you can put a nuclear device aboard that rocket and hit your enemy with impunity. At the beginning of the Sixties, the Russians demonstred that capability, and the Americans no. So, Kennedy raised the bar and called for a new goal: a man on the Moon. And the Russians participated in the race. But their lunar rocket (the N1) never worked and soon they gived up.
Continuing with the rocket theme I highly recommend you check out 1999's "October Sky" with Jake Gyllenhaal. It's a great additional viewing to Apollo 13, to get more background at the history of rockets, Sputnik and the race against Russia.
7:39 - "the things that just broke off"
Simple answer - big rockets are heavy. If you have just one giant rocket as a solid piece, that is an awful lot of weight to carry, requiring exponentially more fuel and thrust. The easiest way to solve this problem is have it in pieces. When one piece expends its fuel, you cut it loose, dropping all that dead weight and leaving a much smaller and lighter vehicle, so less fuel and thrust is required to push it. It takes those two full stages just to get the "trans-Lunar" stage into Earth Orbit. If the command module and lunar module were any larger, the launch rocket would be almost twice the size.
Indeed, the original intended design had NINE of those big-ass engines, and was twice as thick. Probably would have doubled the cost too.
As for where the parts end up
The first stage (the largest) comes back down in the ocean. Even if it were to be recovered, the engines are so violent that it would cost more to fix them up again than to just build new ones. So if they don't sink, they're dismantled.
The second stage doesn't quite make orbit, but is going fast enough that it burns up in the atmosphere. Most of it practically disintegrating.
The third stage, as it already boosted to the moon (the part where they pulled the Lunar Module out) continues behind them, and is manually controlled from the ground to make a small course correction so it would impact the Lunar Surface. These impacts were studied with the seismic monitors that were left behind by Apollo 11 and 12.
10:00 - "zero gravity container"
There is actually no such thing as a "zero gravity container". There is no way to cancel out gravity on the ground, certainly not with current technology or any feasible advances.
However, there IS a way to cheat this, and its how many astronauts train.
They use a modified KC-135 cargo plane, which they affectionately call the "Vomit Comet"
What it does is fly up in large arcs. It goes up at a high angle and then makes a slow controlled dive. So for periods of about 30 seconds, the plane (and everything in it) is effectively "falling"
Think skydiver in freefall. Whereas a skydiver would have wind rushing past them - inside the enclosed aircraft, you get no visual sensation of motion outside. So inside everything is falling with the plane and effectively simulates zero-gravity.
So in an ingenious move on the part of Director Ron Howard, they built a mockup of the Command and Lunar modules inside the "Vomit Comet" and filmed all the zero-gravity scenes during these 30 second dives. Real life Astronaut Jim Lovell had said that Tom Hanks and crew logged more hours in the Vomit Comet than he himself would ever care to (even after training for FOUR flights) LOL
Liv....watch Hidden Figures a movie featuring women who figured out all the math for any launch took place...best movie I have ever seen.
Apollo 11 is the movie you were thinking you were going to watch. I'd recommend that one too
7:12 That's ice. The fuel tanks contained liquid oxygen (which is -297°F or -183°C) and liquid hydrogen (which is -423°F or -253°C, only a little above absolute zero). The tanks were insulated, but the outside of the rocket could still get quite cold, to the point that the humid Florida air would freeze on contact. The ice was then broken off at engine ignition due to the intense vibration of the rocket.
7:30 A rocket's total mass is one of the main factors in its efficiency (the lighter, the better). A rocket is really just the capsule, fuel, engines, and the tanks and supporting structures built around them, so when those tanks empty they become dead weight. To improve efficiency, orbital rockets are typically built using separate stages with their own fuel tanks and engines, and when a stage empties, it is jettisoned and the next set of engines takes over. The first stage crashed into the Atlantic, the second stage burned up in the atmosphere, and the third stage was intentionally crashed into the moon.
9:48 Yes, they filmed those scenes in special airplanes commonly nicknamed "Vomit Comets." They are generally cargo planes (nowadays, I know of a Boeing 727 and an Airbus A310) that have been customized to accomodate zero-G flight. This is achieved in the atmosphere by flying along a parabolic flight path, which gives about one and a half minutes of zero-G flight, followed by a minute and a half of 1.8-G flight as the plane climbs back to the point where it begins its parabolic flight again. It would then fly several cycles in a row like that.
21:33 It isn't on fire - as it hits the atmosphere at about 39,500 kmh (24,545 mph), it creates shock waves in the air ahead of it (kept at bay by a cushion of compressed air). Ahead of this shock wave is plasma heated to 5000°F (2760°C), which causes radio interference and hence the radio blackout. The heat shield is ablative, meaning it evaporates and carries away the heat with it. The interior is climate controlled and maintains a comfortable temperature throughout the reentry.
You should watch "the History Buffs channel's video on Apollo 13 it will answer a lot of your questions in detail.
We shot people into space and landed on the moon before we invented the electronic calculator. The average smartphone has greater computing ability than NASA during the Apollo program. The history of the Space Race is absolutely wild. Fun fact about the CO2 filter workaround: it was actually designed by *one guy* while he was driving to work. Marilyn Lovell actually did drop her wedding ring down the shower drain, too, but she was able to retrieve it easily. They also actually had to do two burns to course-correct, but only one was included in the movie because the director felt that two would seem unbelievable.
They were practicing re-entry to Earth I believe in the simulator, at least when he failed and they "burned up". The moon doesn't have enough atmosphere to do that. It's crazy to me that a lot of younger people don't even know this happened, but perhaps that is also tied to the fact that they didn't even air their broadcast.
This type of rocket separates in stages. The purpose of this is to reduce the mass by removing any portions of the ship which are no longer needed. Most of the jettisoned equipment falls back to earth, typically burning up as it passes through the atmosphere at high speed. Some smaller pieces that separate later might remain in orbit either temporarily or permanently. There are countless leftover rocket parts that have been orbiting the planet as junk for decades. And yes, the scenes were filmed in zero gravity. In case you don’t know, this is done by flying a large cargo aircraft to a high altitude then diving abruptly down words. The people and items inside are in a zero gravity state, Which is more commonly known as freefall. I can only assume that this is quite the experience for the actors and film crew.
Not by diving abruptly downwards. By using a parabolic flight maneuver.
You asked why the rocket keep breaking apart. Saturn V was a multi-stage rocket. You can put a small payload above the atmosphere with a fairly small single stage rocket. But to put a heavy payload of men, a moon-landing vehicle, power, food, and everything else into orbit and then on a path to the moon, you need a large multistage rocket like the Saturn V. The fuel in the first stage put the ship into space, and then dropped off when it was no longer needed; the second stage boosted them into orbit, and then dropped off, and the third stage, the Saturn IV-B rocket, launched them toward the moon. The spent stages dropped into the Atlantic Ocean.
Enjoyed your reaction. You mentioned the lack of women in NASA. Check out the movie Hidden Figures. It’s about the contributions of black women to the space program. It’s really good.
For context on just how difficult space flight was with the tech at the time Apollo 13's accident, it would be a whole year before Intel would create the CPU microprocessor. A basic Nokia phone from the 80s and 90s was more powerful than the Lunar Module's guidance computer. This meant that - with the power constraints the _Aquarius_ was working with - any calculations on course correction had to be done by hand on the ground, then radioed back to the crew with _exact_ instructions on what power and for how long to burn the engine.
This is near-verbatim from a video you can watch here on RUclips: "Three Men Lost in Space - The Apollo 13 Disaster".
There is a deep, remote section of the Pacific Ocean that is a spaceship graveyard. Things that fall back to earth are directed there when possible.
Kevin Bacon did the interview where he was telling about the weightlessness. They were able to use what is known as the vomit comet at NASA. He said they made about 600 to 700 flights so they actually did experience weightlessness it was real.
Apollo 8 went around the moon. Apollo 11 was the first to land on the moon. Apollo 17 was the last to land on the moon
Spaxe program or space race started with the x ( jet engine, breaking the sound barrier) then Gemini, and apollo. Programs. Id recommend the movie ( the right stuff ) 80s . Covered the early space race . Each of the missions lead to the moon . 13 failed but there were 17 apollo missions. ( 14 to 17 didn't land ) but telstar or satellite communications. Cable TV ect . All came from apollo. For example. Telstar( the first communication satellite) was developed to allow rarth to communicate with the space ships. It also allow for global tv broadcasts. In 1967 . ( the Beatles wrote and performed, all you need is love ) for the celebration. Live recording and performance. Actually every country in the world had time . But the uk . Gave there time to the Beatles.
Two other movies worth watching are The Right Stuff (1983), about early development of the space program in the U.S. and Hidden Figures, which is about three women in the early days of the space program..
Hi Liiv the white stuff coming off of the rocket at take off was ice it forms on the outside of the rocket because part of the rocket fuel is liquid oxygen and is very cold. The large Saturn 5 rockets used in the Apollo missions had three stages that dropped away on there journey into orbit. The sections fall back to earth and fall into the ocean. If something went wrong there was no one to go up and save them. The back up crews were in case someone got sick or like what happened to the crew that was supposed to go they were all replaced. Apollo 11 was the first moon landing the ones before just circled the moon without landing they went up to Apollo 17. To film the weightless scenes the actors went up in a special jet plane that fly's up high and then dives down making everything in the plane weightless. This had to be done many times to get the footage. The plane got the nick name...The vomit commit.
I strongly suggest listening to the actual audio of this event. The professionalism and calmness of the entire crew throughout is just incredible. So much so that using the actual voices of the crew in the film would have made for boring dialogue.
They are fucking COOL AS CUCUMBERS.
He actually said "One small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind." but it didn't pick up on the mic for some reason.
What’s interesting is that when this movie came out, everyone knew the ending. Because it was indeed a major event in American history.
Despite that, the director still managed to make it suspenseful and the movie was a big hit.
So it’s interesting seeing you coming in and not knowing anything.
Another great movie starring Tom Hanks inspired by true events in American history.
“A League of Their Own” (1992)
And if you like some more space themed movies.
“Gravity” (2013)
“Gattaca” (1997)
Would love to see your reactions for these fantastic film!
7:13 that stuff was ice. The tanks were filled with cryogenic fuel, at a temperature well below zero. Condensation on the rocket surface made a layer of ice that falls at the launch.
8:17 that is called "multistage rocket": you basically leave behind the spent engines and fuel tanks, and your vehicle becomes lighter and lighter, and easier to accelerate to the desired trajectory. This, even today, is the only viable method of space travel. The spent stages ended up in the ocean, burnt in the atmosphere or lost in space. They were single-use machines. More recently we have acquired the ability to recover and reuse rocket stages.
Oh and the "abort" activate an auxilliary, small rocket that push the spacecraft and the crew away from the main rocket in case of a serious problem. Then, the small rocket detach and the spacecraft descends with parachutes.
19:37 Some of the most unvaluable tasks were entrusted to womens. For example, a woman, Margaret Hamilton, was the responsible of the entire programming of the Apollo Guidance Computer. A truly monumental work.
On the “No women in the astronaut program,” several things. The astronauts were drawn predominantly from the fighter pilot/test pilot community and, at that time, that was all male. Space travel is always dangerous. It’s been noted that your Apollo rocket or space shuttle has over one million moving parts sitting on several thousand tons on explosive fuel built by the lowest bidder on the contract. NASA tried to ‘humanize’ space by sending a female school teacher up on the space shuttle and it exploded killing the whole crew moments after launch.
At the time of Apollo I’m not aware of any specific rule against women being astronauts but I have no doubt that NASA, a publicly funded agency that sees its programs flourish under politicians like Kennedy and Johnson and wither at times of budgetary belt-tightening, the PR implications of having a woman blown to bits in front of the eyes of the world and what that might do to the agency and its abilities to carry out future missions cannot be discounted. There’s a fabulous HBO miniseries, ‘From the Earth to the Moon,’ that tells the story of the days when NASA lagged behind the Soviets in the Space Race. My favorite scene is when an eager beaver nerd engineer sticks his head in his harried supervisor’s office and inquires, “Do we have to bring the astronauts back alive…..??? Because, if we don’t, we can, like, go…… tomorrow…… if you want…..” Though clearly wanting to throw his stapler at the guy’s head, the put-upon supervisor in no uncertain terms, “NASA will never engage in one-way missions!”
On that, though, volunteers for one-way missions to Mars can be had. There are enough older pilots, scientists and engineers that we could mount a mission to, say, Mars with the understood expectation that they would not be coming home. There exists a population of people who, in their own estimation, have lived full lives, had children, even grandchildren, who’d volunteer for such a mission but NASA hasn’t acted on anything like that. From an engineering perspective, though, insisting on a safe return for the crew more than doubles the number of problems any such mission would have to solve. There’s a somewhat simplistic formula that for every pound that goes into space, requires, from memory, somebody please correct me, something like 22 pounds of fuel. More fuel, water, oxygen, food, etc to come home just ups the amount required to get you off the ground.
There are some interesting ideas to ease these calculations: set up a base on the moon with, I believe 1/9th or 1/7th the gravity, send unmanned supplies ahead to Mars to resupply the mission home, park supplies in Earth or Mars orbit but every contingency like that adds an element of risk to the mission. What if they land on Mars too far away from their supplies? What if they crash on the moon? On the flip-side, packing the whole mission in one vessel makes it heavier, requiring a bigger rocket with more moving parts and more explosive fuel.
Were they worried they would die? These astronauts were mostly military test pilots. They thrived in a career where every day they could have crashed in flames. From ask I've read about them, fear was not part of their makeup, they ask thought if they did what they were trained to do they would survive - death was something that happened to other guys.
Yes, all men. If you looked at a space control room or the crews today, you would see a more diverse crowd.
If you want to see how some women did contribute to the early space program you should check out "Hidden Figures"
Hey Liiv, the percentage of women in NASA us around 5-10%. So back in 1970 the number of women in the NASA space scientific staff would be less than .05%. It was the times and the educational system. It was a male domintated structure. However, if you wish to see female side of things you should check out the movie, "Hidden Figures". It's really amazing.
for the zero G scenes they put the set inside a plane nicknamed the Vomit Comet which does these parabolic curves up & down. when you reach the peak you get 30 whole seconds of weightlessness then you sit down for a minute & wait for the next peak. that or they do it with SFX.
Parts of the rocket that separate from the spacecraft fall through the atmosphere and burn up on the way down. The Chinese were recently criticized for not ensuring that the debris would burn up. Pieces of space junk landed in the Pacific near the Philippines. Great job.
Some of the zero gravity scenes was filmed in the vomit comet, an aircraft designed to fall from a high level to a lower for 30 seconds at a time, creating freefall. A KC-35A I believe.
You should do "Apollo 11", which is all footage of the actual first landing on the moon.
I was 2 years old when that happened, and remember (vaguely) my family watching that on television. It's amazing the evolution of technology since then. Humans are heading back to the moon within the next few years. You can keep up with what they are doing in preparation by watching NASA's channel.
I would actually instead recommend the HBO Miniseries "From The Earth to The Moon", which not only covers the landing in the Apollo 11 episode, but all the steps needed to make it work and get there. Plus, you get to know all the colorful personalities in the Astronaut corps, particularly the "New Nine" like Lovell, Conrad, Borman, McDivitt, and of course Armstrong. I just wish John Young got a bit more prominence, as he is the only one there who gets more flight experience than Lovell, both before and after Apollo. But then, they were ALL legends, even those who flew only once.
In order to get the astronauts into space, it had to be done in stages. That's why you'll hear people refer to the Saturn V rocket as a "staged rocket." There wasn't a single rocket big enough or powerful enough to reach orbit in one go, so it had to be done in stages. As each stage was used up (served it's purpose) it would be jettisoned, and the next stage would go into action, getting them a little closer to orbit. The parts that got jettisoned are still out there, orbiting the Earth to this very day!
Murphy’s Law: What ever can go wrong will go wrong
I suggest looking at some of the real Apollo 13 photos. It’s crazy how they survived this
Just remember at this time in history, the computers that were used to get Apollo 11 to the moon was the size of an entire room and had less computing power than a regular modern smart phone. Also, that thing they built for the filter; I think they have that thing in a museum somewhere, unless I’m wrong. This was a time when women still weren’t “allowed” to be employed in this line of work cuz it was still when people thought women couldn’t be qualified for it. They always land in the ocean, unless they use the other landing zone that’s out in the middle of the wilderness
You should go watch the actual footage and pictures it's absolutely crazy I mean this movie was so accurate it's unreal it's probably the best space movie I've ever made as far as everything being completely accurate
Hey Liiv! Loved your reaction!
I think this movie is the most realistic blockbuster ever made! 😃
U gotta appreciate the main leader in the station played by Ed Harris, was so calm in this situation and calming others too to focus on the job. That’s a mark of a true leader 👍👍
Ron Howard did a brilliant job in making this film, the Howard family did a great job.
The Eecom guy "from my seat this is the last option" is Ron's Brother , Clint.
Rance Howard played the family minister, Ron's father.
And Ron's mother Jean Howard played Blanch Lovell.
Well done all.
Ron Howard went above and beyond. NASA gave full permission for them to use the old Apollo MOCR (mission operations control room) which still exists (albeit is not in current operational use, rather is preserved for history sake). But Ron wanted greater control over the camera, and the ability to remove walls to get large camera cranes in for certain shots. So instead, he had the production team build an entirely new recreation of MOCR from scratch. The recreation was so spot-on perfect that Astronaut David Scott (Apollo 15) who was one of the technical directors on the film was completely fooled. By the end of a shooting day, he would instinctually go for a door that would have led to an exit in the real-life Mission Control, only to find it was either a false door, or would lead to the sound stage, needing a minute to remember he wasn't on the real thing LOL.
Blanch's scene is one of my favorites in the whole movie - "Don't you worry, Honey. If they could get a washin' machine to fly,... my Jimmy could land it!"
You should watch hidden figures for a story about women in the space program
Watch "First Man" for the story of the first Moon landing, Apollo 11.
"The Right Stuff" book and movie.
The space ship seperate in 3 pieces, first is the gas tank second is the engines, the last is the part with crew inside and actualy is the piece who turn the astronaut back to earth. Now in the movie we see one more part and that is the ship for landing in Moon.
Technically four, if you count the Command-Service-Lunar module combination separate from the S4B Trans-Lunar stage :3
Gene Kranz was "Mission Control" at NASA from the '60s and '70s. When they cast Ed Harris as "Gene", I don't think there has been a more perfect physical representation by an actor of a Real Person. Ever.
Space in these vehicles was extraordinarily cramped, in large part because the rocket fuel required is very heavy and takes up a TON of space. A rocket is really the small astronaut compartment(s) sitting atop a great big missile. The crews consisted of three men (always men....despite testing that had been done which indicated women would be able to tolerate the rigors of space travel as well as - or even better than - the men).
As for the weightless scenes, those were filmed in a special airplane - the "vomit comet" (I think you can imagine from whence it came by that nickname....lol). Cast and crew would ride up quite high into the atmosphere and then the plane would get turned back toward the ground and "fall" at a speed that matches - and therefore cancels - the acceleration of gravity for a short stretch of time.
And these missions ALWAYS ended with the astronauts in that tiny pod, splashing down in the ocean. That module is the only heat-shielded compartment available to them...and the water provides for a relatively soft landing and an instant cool-down, I'd imagine. lol
There weren't any women in the control room at NASA. Why would you even ask such a question? Is this how we look at everything now? These were what were referred to as "steely eyed missile men". Not particularly "emotionally intelligent" but something far more important. They were competent. They were determined. They stayed on point and used every ounce of intelligence and skill they had towards achieving a goal. Sorry for the "man-splaining".
This movie is based on a true story. Up to Apollo 11 they were just doing practice and moon flyovers. On Apollo 11 they did the first landing of a man on the moon and on Apollo 12-Apollo 18 they did more lunar landings and brought some moon rocks back,
one correction - Apollo 17
Apollo 18 was cancelled, as they mention at the end of the film. Fred Haise was supposed to be LMP on that one. What the film didn't mention was, though Haise never flew the Shuttle into space, he was piloting many of its approach and landing tests. So, unlike those who flew the Shuttle into space, Fred Haise was one of the few who actually got to be at the helm of the Enterprise :3
"...I have no idea if this is tr-"
Me: Something tells me THAT wasn't supposed to happen.
Women stayed home and raised children, cooked meals and kept the house clean. It was brfore women's lib gained popularity. Also before prices were so high both parents had to work just to make ends meet.
You're right. There were no women in the control rooms. No people of color either. This was brought up at the time and NASA was accused of discrimination for it tgis was the explanation. The positions in the control room were highly technical and those holding those positions needed specific degrees, often several of them. At that point in history, women and people of color just didn't take the necessary courses and get the requisite degrees. Watching these scenes you can see where certain skills and knowledge would be required. When universities were audited to see who was taking what courses it became clear that only white men were in those classes. It looks like discrimination, but it wasn't.
There was one female engineer in the control room for the Apollo 11 launch. Her name is JoAnn Morgan, she was the first, and I think for some time, the only, woman present in the control room during a critical mission phase (when the doors are closed to anyone else). She is seen in the 2019 Apollo 11 documentary (and its trailer).
It's societal discrimination upstream
Wonderful reaction, thank you🙂🙂🙂
Re-watch the end scenes of them getting of the helicopter onto the aircraft carrier. There is an officer in whites (white uniform) that shakes Tom Hanks hand. That is the REAL Jim Lovell in a cameo.
According to Jim Lovell (the last surviving member of the Apollo 13 crew at the time of the movies making), it was "mostly accurate" but some of the interpersonal stuff (arguements, etc) were "overly dramatized". They didn't have a shouting match in the command module, etc... Otherwise, it's a VERY close to reality movie.
Small correction Jim Lovell, Ken Mattingly and Fred Haise are all still alive today.
One little known fact : you have more computer power in your cellphone than Apollo 13 had .
Im sure others have answered most of these already but answere your questions in the orders I noticed them: there were 17 Apollo missions, Apollo 11 was the first to actually land (the rest of 12-17 were supposed to land as well but obviously 13 never did. Alot of the earlier missions werent actually launches they were ground tests and the like (I think from memory Apollo 6 or 7 was the first to actually fly).
The white stuff falling off the rocket during launch is ice (most of teh rocket is a big ass fuel tank and the fuel is mostly liquid oxygen and hydrogen so the outside of the rocket even insulated gets pretty damn cold. All the bits that fall off during the launch process are called 'stages' esentially its designed so lower stages of the rockets burn all their fuel up then the whole segment detaches so the remaining rocket is much much lighter, it then burns its engines to use its fuel up and so on, the VAST majoirty of the rocket is just get toe little tiny ship on top into orbit and on its way to the moon! As for what happens to the other bits, they all burn up on reentry to the atmosphere.
As for filming in 0 G you cant just make a zero gravity chamber sadly, thats still very much the realms of science fiction at the moment! What they did was build a set on NASA's 0G training plane which is a big old empty airliner that goes into a rapid dive from high altitude and everything on board is basically in free fall so it simulates 0 g, they did that for most of the 0 g filming sequences on the movie (whcih is INSANE effort to go for a movie! They just dont make em like this any more eh? :P)
as for the space suits they couldnt really: 1) theyre rather large and bulky and they cant really operate the ship in them, 2) they use power and resources to keem them warm not just a matter of insulation (power and resources they didnt have.
as for there being no women... it was 1969 there were not alot of women working in the sciences (there weresome mind you the person who wrote the software that ran the apollo missions was a woman for one (and she got next to no recognition sadly :()