# Apollo 13 - flaws in the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 19, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618 "2007-06-19T18:31:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/61 "2011-06-02T05:27:58Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > I can’t remember the exact line, but there’s a scene in Pancho’s bar toward the end of the movie where the other pilots are denigrating the astronauts … “They’re just doing what monkeys have done.” > [@PoorYorick](#): > > … he says something about them being pilots nonetheless, as if he’s accepting the changing of the guard, and that he’s not a part of it. Since his words carry weight, the other pilots accept it. “Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he’s sitting on a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys, they know that, see? I’ll tell you, it takes a special man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one on TV.” ([From here.](http://www.angelfire.com/movies/closedcaptioned/rightstuff-s.txt)) CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/62 "2011-06-02T06:41:37Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I thought the funniest line in the movie was delivered to Mattingly in the hotel when the guy from NASA came to get him. “Good, you’re not dead.” > > The second point you make is a good one. “Come on rookie, park that thing” type dialog \*was \*annoying. This was one very specific thing I remember Lowel talking about when the film came out. Howard made a big crisis out of docking the CM and the LEM. If he can’t park that, we don’t have a mission." Jim Lowel said, one there was no question that he could perform the docking and two, if for some reason he couldn’t, there were two other guys in the CM that could. I don’t know know he chose to have everyone speak French. They were all American citizens. Oh wait, I just have the French language turned on. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/63 "2011-06-02T07:37:12Z")
I’m watching it right now and I noticed a couple other things. There’s a scene where the ground controllers say their trajectory is getting too shallow; they’re underweight because they didn’t collect any samples from the moon. So they tell Lovell and Haise to transfer some ballast from the LM to the Command Module. But they’re still attached at that point. How is moving weight around going to make the whole thing any heavier? (If the comment about shallowing is a prediction for after they jetison the LM, the action makes sense. But it doesn’t play out that way, and if they had the parameters to make that prediction they wouldn’t be surprised the ship was underweight.) There are scenes where the astronauts’ breath is condensing in the cold, but you can still see it rising. They must have built a set in a refrigerated room. And other posters have already said that there was a set that allowed them to shoot zero-G scenes on a Vomit Comet. I guess they couldn’t do both at the same time, though. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/64 "2011-06-02T07:44:10Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I’m watching it right now and I noticed a couple other things. > > There’s a scene where the ground controllers say their trajectory is getting too shallow; they’re underweight because they didn’t collect any samples from the moon. So they tell Lovell and Haise to transfer some ballast from the LM to the Command Module. But they’re still attached at that point. How is moving weight around going to make the whole thing any heavier? (If the comment about shallowing is a prediction for after they jetison the LM, the action makes sense. But it doesn’t play out that way, and if they had the parameters to make that prediction they wouldn’t be surprised the ship was underweight.) > > There are scenes where the astronauts’ breath is condensing in the cold, but you can still see it rising. They must have built a set in a refrigerated room. And other posters have already said that there was a set that allowed them to shoot zero-G scenes on a Vomit Comet. I guess they couldn’t do both at the same time, though. IIRC-Hanks, Bacon and Paxton spent as much. if not more time, in the Vomit Comet, than any actual astronaut. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/65 "2011-06-02T15:05:08Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > There’s a scene where the ground controllers say their trajectory is getting too shallow; they’re underweight because they didn’t collect any samples from the moon. So they tell Lovell and Haise to transfer some ballast from the LM to the Command Module. But they’re still attached at that point. How is moving weight around going to make the whole thing any heavier? (If the comment about shallowing is a prediction for after they jetison the LM, the action makes sense. But it doesn’t play out that way, and if they had the parameters to make that prediction they wouldn’t be surprised the ship was underweight.) They need the extra mass to match re-entry trajectory parameters (so the capsule behaves upon re-entry as anticipated). However, the inaccuracy in the trajectory was due to errors in the trajectory adjustment and correction burns. There were actually two major adjustments and a handful of smaller corrections, instead of the one major firing depicted in the film; some of the dialogue actually appears to reflect this, but seems to have been trimmed from the script or final cut of the film for the sake of making the scene more dramatic (“Gee, I hope we don’t have to do that again.”) Agreed that the treatment of Swigert was pretty egregious and done only to concoct tension. Howard is, of course, trying to tell a story, not just recount events, but bowdlerizing basic facts and personalities to jack up the tension is pretty ham-fisted, especially when there was plenty of real tension. The same is true for his treatment of the Grumman rep (Grumman actually had thousands of people working on use of the LEM as a habitat and propulsion module, and had actually performed hundreds of studies for alternative uses of the LEM including lifeboat/rescue operations), the working of CSM preparation procedures, conflicts with the flight surgeon, et cetera. As a movie, it tells a fairly compelling story (at least, the scenes that are restricted to the astronauts and Mission Control) but it shouldn’t be considered representative of the facts and personalities. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Thresher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f0a364/32.png) [@Thresher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thresher)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/66 "2013-06-26T06:40:21Z")
Jim Lovell spoke with me and a 2 friends for an hour in 1998. He said the one flaw he brought to Ron Howard was that his Corvette was actually blue. Ron liked the drama of a red one. The technical flaw that he said virtually all tech geeks missed was the scene showing the rocket pointing at earth during the course correction, like a car changing lanes on a highway. The real course correction would have the rocket maneuvered perpendicular to their momentum, firing sideways to the earth. If you were in a canoe on a swift river, to reach a point on a downstream bank you would maximize your efforts by rowing directly at the shore. It was fascinating to speak to someone who had cheated death so gracefully. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/67 "2013-06-26T13:33:39Z")
It’s a coincidence that you would resurrect this thread, because about two weeks ago I was given a copy of the book _Apollo 13_ (previously published as _Lost Moon_ signed by Jim Lovell himself. I was explaining to my kids who Lovell was and what happened on A13 when I just decided to sit down with them and watch the movie, which we did on Saturday. (My six year old lost interest, but my 8 year old was fascinated. I had to pause the movie a few times to explain things.) I’m looking forward to reading the book now to see how many liberties Ron Howard had to take to turn it into a (very good) movie. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/68 "2013-06-26T16:51:41Z")
Recently on the Smithsonian Channel, also available via iTunes and [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69LDSL-9--g): > [@](#): > > [The Real Story: Apollo 13](http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/sc/web/series/679/the-real-story/141246/apollo-13) > No one would believe the story if it hadn’t actually happened. The 1970 rescue of Apollo 13 captivated the nation and the film adaptation went on to win two Oscars®. But how close to the truth was the film? Was “Houston, we have a problem,” or “Failure is not an option,” ever actually said? Did hostilities between the astronauts really exist? To reveal the truth, we put the big movie moments to the test. Firsthand accounts from astronauts and Mission Control staff involved in the rescue, as well as an interview with filmmaker Ron Howard, reveal the full story. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/69 "2015-10-08T04:11:56Z")
Bumped. Bunch of Apollo pics just posted on Flickr; see #15, 16 and 17 from Apollo 13: [http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/tech/moon-photos-nasa-feat/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/tech/moon-photos-nasa-feat/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/70 "2015-10-08T15:40:03Z")
Realizing this is a zombie, I didn’t see (but might have missed) one other historically inaccurate thing - Ken Mattingly never went home and pouted in real life. He was involved in support throughout (and in the movie, didn’t someone need to tell him about the accident?). That’s probably not surprising, given the temperament NASA looks for in astronauts. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/71 "2015-10-08T16:49:49Z")
There are a thousand pages of flaws in that movie. We’re on page 8. Uh, 2. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/72 "2015-10-09T07:19:48Z")
In post 45 (in 2011), Irishman described how the root cause of the Apollo 13 failure was a flawed testing procedure. I find it fascinating that the c. 1990 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster was also triggered by a should-have-been-routine testing procedure. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/73 "2015-10-09T15:20:41Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > In post 45 (in 2011), Irishman described how the root cause of the Apollo 13 failure was a flawed testing procedure. I find it fascinating that the c. 1990 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster was also triggered by a should-have-been-routine testing procedure. True, but there is a difference. Things were checked before they went into use. No one was doing a tank drain during the mission. The redundancies built in to Apollo allowed the safe return of all the crew. It did not render all of space uninhabitable for generations. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/74 "2015-10-09T15:28:09Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Grumman Aircraft aircraft rep has a single line about how the LEM is not designed for what they were attempting. Sounded kind of whiny and in conflict to how the Grumman people actually reacted. You’re forgetting \How 'bout that LEM \So you get to keep your job \You betcha ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/75 "2015-10-09T15:28:56Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > The redundancies built in to Apollo allowed the safe return of all the crew. It did not render all of space uninhabitable for generations. Yeah, it did! It took all the _air_ outta space! You can’t _breathe_ there no more! ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/76 "2015-10-09T17:13:54Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Yeah, it did! It took all the _air_ outta space! You can’t _breathe_ there no more! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/77 "2015-10-09T19:11:21Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > There’s a scene where the ground controllers say their trajectory is getting too shallow; they’re underweight because they didn’t collect any samples from the moon. So they tell Lovell and Haise to transfer some ballast from the LM to the Command Module. But they’re still attached at that point. How is moving weight around going to make the whole thing any heavier? (If the comment about shallowing is a prediction for after they jetison the LM, the action makes sense. But it doesn’t play out that way, and if they had the parameters to make that prediction they wouldn’t be surprised the ship was underweight.) It’s not just overall weight, it’s weight distribution. They are using the LM engine, so they might need to move ballast further from the thrust and closer to the cg of the vehicle. Or the weight distribution is offset to one side because rocks aren’t where they’re supposed to be. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/78 "2015-10-09T21:18:20Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > It’s not just overall weight, it’s weight distribution. They are using the LM engine, so they might need to move ballast further from the thrust and closer to the cg of the vehicle. Or the weight distribution is offset to one side because rocks aren’t where they’re supposed to be. When this thread got revived, I went and read the goofs section at IMDb. According to someone there the ballast was shifted, but it was to get the correct CG in the command module during re-entry. I still think the way it’s portrayed in the movie is incorrect. Overall weight wouldn’t cause the vehicle’s trajectory to become shallower, shifting weight from one place to another wouldn’t cause the vehicle to become heavier, and I think they do it after the last correction burn so it couldn’t have been for CG reasons during the burn. All that said, I was at the Boston Museum of Science last week and they have mock ups of the inside of the LM and CM, and the gauges and controls look like the movie and are in the right places. Howard didn’t get everything right, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/79 "2015-10-10T03:32:16Z")
Probably right. Haven’t seen the movie in a while. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618/80 "2015-10-10T05:31:54Z")
There’s a couple of things I want to say. 1. If you’re really interested in what happened and not just comparing film treatments, don’t go by the film “The Right Stuff”, read the book. B. Andrew Chaiken’s book, “A Man On The Moon” was made into an HBO 12 episode miniseries “From The Earth To The Moon”, by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. If you’re interested in this stuff, read the book and watch the miniseries. iii. Yes, there was a degree of sour grapes on Yeager’s part toward the Mercury program. But it wasn’t ALL sour grapes. As for the sour grapes part, Yeager was a high school graduate; one of the final requirements for candidates included a B.S. in Engineering, Physics, Math, or something like that. So Yeager was never a candidate. Now, this didn’t bother Yeager all that much during the recruiting and selection process. At the time, the “astronauts” were never intended to do any actual piloting. The flights were going to be automated or remotely controlled from the ground. They were selected as human medical test subjects. And the astronauts being Active Duty Military Test Pilots was mostly a decision made by Pres. Eisenhower to pretty much put an end to the dithering and debating taking place in NASA (or was it still NACA?) at the time. What really ticked off Yeager (and other test pilots close to his stature/status (he WAS the top)) was the instant fame and goodies the Mercury 7 got as soon as they appeared at a press conference. He had known some of the 7 and was not impressed much by their test pilot credentials. But again, they were selected as medical test subjects, not pilots. Okay, I’ll put my soap box away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/apollo-13-flaws-in-the-movie/408618.md?page=3)