There’s a scene in the movie in which someone is describing the reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. It goes something like:
“If the earth is a basketball, and the moon is a softball 30 feet away, the reentry window would be about the thickness of this sheet of paper.”
This looked like archive footage to me, but I couldn’t id the people. Anyone???
I don’t know, but consider that they performed the entry mostly on manual control-and came down within sight of the carrier sent to pick them up. That’s like hitting a hole-in-one on a 5 mile long hole.
That’s like hitting a free throw from San Diego when the basket is in Orlando.
I seem to remember hearing that of all of NASA’s manned space missions of that land-in-the-ocean era, Apollo 13 landed closest to its recovery vessel.
Since much of the dialogue is taken straight from NASA tanscripts and the whole thing is very historically accurate, it’s probable that this was actually said (although he may not have been speaking literally).
Was the ship in the center of the recovery area, though?
When my dad was in the Air Force, I was with him one day when he had to go in and pick something up, and we went past the squadron trophy case. Amidst all the banners and awards, there was something that was squashed flat. My dad told me it was a lamp that was used to mark the area for cargo drops. They landed a pallet right on top of it.
Wouldn’t want the Apollo capsule to come down on the carrier, now would we?
Looks like Apollo 13 was close, but not closest:
Apollo 13: 1.9 miles
Apollo 14: 1.1 miles
Apollo 15: 1.9 miles
Apollo 16: 5.6 miles
Apollo 17: 1.9 miles
I cannot for the life of me source this, but I know that I read somewhere that the guy explaining the angle of reentry is actually Jeffrey Kluger, co-author of Lovell’s book “Lost Moon.” Lovell might point that out on the Apollo 13 commentary track…can’t recall.
Edit: Yeah, it’s him.
http://www.thefutureoflife.com/speakers/kluger.htm
Don Knotts landed on the carrier.
Thanks. I think that’s the person.
Jebus! That’s good shooting.
Per the IMDB,
Jeffrey Kluger … Science Reporter (as Jeffrey S. Kluger)
CMC fnord!
I’ve got an Apollo 13 question that I’m sure all the NASA geeks can answer.
Why does Jim Lovell want his son to get a haircut when he has perfectly trimmed, short and tidy hair already?
Because 1)it’s the 60s, 2)Lovell is in the military and 3)his son attends a military academy. And his hair was not short enough for a military academy.
But he was reluctant.
Yeah, I had seend that, but that alone wasn’t enough to corroborate it, as quite a few scenes of archive footage with unidentified talking heads are used. I think Jules Bergman is one of the few who are actually ided onscreen.
But what’s up with those Apollo 16 slackers?
(and I love the story of the squashed lantern trophy)
The film crew intentionally made some new footage look like archive footage. They succeeded well enough that a NASA official watching their launch scene (which was all done in the studio) thought it was archive footage of an actual launch.