In the Apollo 13 movie, at the end of the first boost for the Moon, the Fred Hayes character shouts “Seiko!” when it’s time for the thusters to shut down.
Why “Seiko” ? The brand of chronometer he’s staring at?
I should probably add that in a long ago Heinlein I’d read, The Rolling Stones, one of the characters shouts “brennschluss” at the end of a burn. The “seiko” shout in Apollo 13 seems to be an echo of this.
The only info I see on the term “brennschluss” is that it’s German for “end of burn”. So why’s Freddo shouting Seiko ?
OK, I disavow the link above. I could probably have found a better cite for the definition of brennschluss than the Iranian Remote Sensing Center. :eek: Sorry.
Heh.
It sounds right to my minmally-trained ears. Lycos’s translation robot renders it as `burnout,’ which is pretty close to what the Iranian psychics and I think and can probably be hand-waved as a typically naive rendering.
SECO: S-4B Engine Cut-Off
At least, that’s what I think it means. The English captions definitely say SECO, though.
Um. I just switched the audio to Jim Lovell’s commentary track, and he says that SECO means “Single Engine Shut Down.”
Hmmm, ‘Single engine cut-off.’ …?