OK, I’ve finally found time to read the book where author Jim Lovell lays out the facts. So much more went wrong than they could squeeze into a movie (without need for a physics course, and such.). BUT!!! In the movie “Apollo 13”, once in space (I’d assume in a holding or maintenance orbit about the earth)…the movie shows the assembly of the LEM to the unit comprised of the command and service modules.
Unless I missed it somehow, Jim Lovell, giving painstaking details, never mentions this in the book! As I always understood it, the LEM+command+service modules were one unit at this point. I can only guess Hollywood was taking something out of context to add to the drama? I think they might have been describing events when leaving the lunar surface…which Apollo 13 never did. I can understand the practice in the SIM, but the movie actually showed this as the first step of the actual mission with script like: “if he can’t assmble this, there’s no mission”.
Wow, you’re right. I never had noticed it, but I can’t find it in the book. Does yours have the white section in the middle with pictures? If so, look at the diagram entitled “The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13” and notice number 3: “Odyssey docks with Aquarius, pulling it from third stage, April 11, 5:14 PM.” So, in short, yes it happened, no, it isn’t (I think) in the book. My guess is he just wanted to get into the conflict. They MADE that into a conflict in the movie.
Yes, I have those center pages, but I didn’t study them that hard…I’ll go back and look! I feel like writing to NASA’s public affairs to find out the details about this step of a mission. I don’t understand why the entire unit couldn’t be launched assembled. Even if the LEM’s skin may need a shroud during lift-off, can’t the unit still be assembled? The LEM can just get tugged along out it’s shroud.
The LM was carried aloft in the stage before the service module. The SM/CM had to connect to it and pull it out before the mission could continue to the moon. Actually, any of the three pilots aboard (they were all highly-skilled test pilots) could have done it. Swigart actually wrote some of the procedures for the mission, so he was no slouch. For the movie though, Ron Howard wanted to make him “earn his wings” (as Jim Lovell put it) at every step in the mission.
Off topic: Gus Grissom didn’t “screw the pooch”. They just portrayed him that way in The Right Stuff. If he did screw up, they never would have let him fly on Gemini, nor would they have given him command of Apollo 1. There is some evidence that his Mercury hatch didn’t blow at all (there’s no scorching from the explosive cord on the capsule); rather, there is a theory that the ship hit the water on that side, deforming the hatch sill. According to the theory, the impace caused the bolts to shear.
I think that there are a couple (probably more) reasons for this. The first and most prominent is the strength of the LEM and the launching setup of the whole contraption. During lanuch, the CM sits atop the HUGE rocket with its nose, the place where the LEM is attached pointed up and blasts off. You couldn’t very well have that huge strange-looking contraption stuck to the top of the CM by that measly connection tube in earth gravity let alone with the amount of force the rocket engine puts out. I imagine that the LEM would have been crushed by the G forces. I would guess that your point about the LEM needing a shroud is valid too.
The Apollo capsule had an escape tower, whose purpose it was to pull the crew to safety in case of an emergency. This would not have been possible if there was lunar module on top of the crew compartment. If an emergency occured, it would have to be jettisoned, then the crew would have to jettison. But where would the escape tower be if there was a LM in its place?
Correct, Johnny. The movie has a minor error in this regard. When the inboard engine of the second stage is lost Tom Hanks eyes the abort control. The escape tower is jettisoned prior to losing the center engine so he could not have aborted. I have never been aware of any abort procedure after the tower is jettisoned while the Saturn is still firing.
Johnny L.A. mentioned Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 and the question of the hatch. Here’s a link to the recovery story, and an interesting follow-up on what they found in the capsule, as well as details of the hatch (no scorch marks, but some buckled titanium strips):
A final conclusion has yet to be reached, but it sure looks like ol’ Gus wasn’t a “squirming little hatch-blower,” after all.
Wonder how much they’d get on Ebay for one of the Mercury dimes they found in the capsule? And what the hell was Gus doing with a bar of “Dial?” Was he hoping to score with some alien female up there and wanted to smell his freshest?
Thanx, Rodd. I have a link to MSNBC, but I keep forgetting to e-mail it home from work. Good Discovery article.
Damn, I love the “Space Race”! I remember when I was very young that we were all taken out of class to the auditorium to watch the splashdown of Apollo 13. Everyone cheered. I still remember the images in my mind as the crisis was happening (but I’ll spare the details here).
One of these days I’ll have some time off. Maybe then I’ll build my Saturn V, Ed White space walk, Lunar landing diorama, Mercury and Gemini capsules, Bell X-1 (great Japanese kit. Includes an optional clear fuselage half.), and whatever other space models I have lying around.
I was on the Space Shuttle Support Team for starting with STS-2 (I send the Rawinsonde data to Houston from Edwards AFB). I wish we’d start putting more money into manned space flight. Then I can dig out my “Moonbase Alpha” patch (from Space: 1999}!
