Apollo 13

[lliam]

Yesterday afternoon,
I watched the last 15 mins on the Discovery Channel.
It was the, Apollo 13 rescue, boy, oh boy, did those guys work hard in the control centre. I saw the movie with Tom Hanks and it was pretty much the same take, except of course the one I watched yesterday was the real thing.
Do any of you guys remember this almost disastrous trip to the moon, and the victorious rescue.
Lliam.

[barfle]

I'm old enough to remember Sputnik, so Apollo 13 was definitely a story I remember well. Maybe I was in denial, but I always felt they would make it back fine. Learning more about just how crippled the spacecraft was made me realize their survival wasn't all that sure until they actually landed.

Although they don't have anything on Apollo 13 right now, I ran across this site that sells DVDs of documentary footage of many US space exploration missions. And I've already dropped a C-note their way. I would doubt that the crew did much filming or taping once the defecation hit the ventilation, so if the site gets a DVD on Apollo 13, it would be mostly the efforts on the ground. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to my 6 disc Apollo 15 program, and I'm anxiously awaiting the release of their Apollo 11 set.

[Marye]

I do remember this... but not as much as I remember the Apollo mission (and I don't remember which one) from 1967 and the name Grissom. There was a fire on board and the space capsule just exploded on the pad killing all on board. It never left the ground. I felt sick watching this ... I was a young girl then and that image still remains with me

[Jeff Dutton]

That was actually a training run, some time before they were scheduled to launch on the first manned Apollo mission. Astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee were killed by a fire in the capsule itself. For realism in the training session they were using 100% oxygen, which fed the intensity of the fire. One of the results of the disaster was improvements in the design of the hatch to enable it to be opened more quickly. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if even that would have saved them under the circumstances. I believe they also stopped using 100% during training runs.
The astronauts have been commemorated with the designation "Apollo I".

[barfle]

There were several issues that added up to three dead heros. Usually in space the capsules were pressurised to something like 8PSI of pure oxygen. To compensate for the fact that they were in the atmosphere, they pressurized the capsule with 8PSI OVER atmospheric pressure, which gave the fire about three times as much oxygen as it would have, even in space.

Apparently, the fire started in a piece of velcro, which can burn but really isn't any concern at normal concentrations of oxygen. Since it has so many little fibers, it has a large surface area to combust. The velcro was used as a way to stick the various tools, pens, clip boards, manuals, etc. to the walls of the capsule.

The training was modified to use either air or low pressure oxygen.

[OperaTenor]

<small>[ 06-20-2003, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: operatenor ]</small>

[barfle]

OT, are you posting blank messages just to boost your count?
:confused:

[OperaTenor]

Gosh, I was hoping to get that one by unnoticed.

Actually, I hadn't read the thread carefully enough, and had posted stuff that had already been said. Can't delete it, so I blanked it. I think my post count is rising at an alarming rate as it is. This idle hands stuff sucks!

[lliam]

The Apollo 13 Review Board was charged with the responsibilities of reviewing the circumstances surrounding the accident, of establishing the probable causes of the accident, of assessing the effectiveness of flight recovery actions, of reporting these findings, and of developing recommendations for corrective or other actions. The Board has made every effort to carry out its assignment in a thorough, objective, and impartial manner. In doing so, the Board made effective use of the failure analyses and corrective action studies carried out by the Manned Spacecraft Centre and was very impressed with the dedication and objectivity of this effort. The Board feels that the nature of the Apollo 13 equipment failure holds important lessons which, when applied to future missions, will contribute to the safety and effectiveness of manned space flight.

But accidents still happened.
Lliam.

[BenODen]

The bottom line usually seems to end up that NASA has fallen asleep and gotten comfortable with problems that should have been solved before flying, but for multiple reasons, weren't. Be it Money, lack of communication, desire to stay on schedule or some combination of these.

I've now lived through two major manned space flight accidents, and the conclusions this time have many parallels to what I've read about the Challenger disaster and the Appolo 1 disaster.

As I sit here and consider, I wonder if we're doomed to repeat this because the funding and man power gets progressively squeezed or internally stretched thin until a disaster happens to bring funding and culture back in line. The killer is that given these drifts of funding and goal, mistakes are made in assessing unknowns making manned space flight more risky than it need be. But I think it's still worth the risk, I just hope that sometime we get it through our heads that this IS rocket science and do the right things.

-Benito

<small>[ 06-27-2003, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: Benito Of Denver ]</small>

[OperaTenor]

The History Channel has a "Modern Marvels" episode on today about Apollo 13.

[lliam]

I watched a movie last week on cable, titled, Mission Mars. The only actor that I knew was, Tim Robbins. I believe that man will colonise Mars in the future.

[Shapley]

You believe Tim Robbins will colonize Mars someday? :confused:

V/R
Shapley

[lliam]

[quote]Originally posted by Shapley:
[b] You believe Tim Robbins will colonize Mars someday?

[Shapley]

Lliam,

Well, I always thought Tim Robbins was kind of spacey. Or is it Kevin that is Spacey? :confused:

Whatever! I haven't seen the movie.

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

I believe it would be sufficient to say "I believe man will colonize Mars someday." The word "that" is not needed, and seems to point to a specific person, which I interpreted to be Tim Robbins, given the preceding statement. Of course, I could be wrong. I'm not a cunning linguist, as some on the board are.

V/R
Shapley

[lliam]

Originally posted by Shapley:
I believe it would be sufficient to say "I believe man will colonize Mars someday." The word "that" is not needed, and seems to point to a specific person, which I interpreted to be Tim Robbins, given the preceding statement. Of course, I could be wrong. I'm not a cunning linguist, as some on the board are.

V/R
Shapley

Shapley, face it: 'Inaccuracy' is a poor word choice. Everything in the article was accurate. You just have a different opinion of the relative importance of the event.

Given the chance, I bet now you'd use a different word, so stop busting a guy's chops when he's posting something of interest about Mars.

[Shapley]

I didn't think I was "busting anyones chops". I was just trying to inject a little humour where I thought I saw an opening.

My most humble apologies, since my attempt obviously fell flat.

V/R
Shapley

[BenODen]

Humor or not, if Tim Robins were to want to be the first to go to mars, he should go. Soon, maybe tomorrow! Um, er, well, slight technical and political hurdles remain, darn.

Since the loss of the Columbia, the debate of whether we have reason to send humans into space has reared it's head yet again... It's depressing that without animosity and competition between countries, there's little unity over this issue. Other issues deserve to be adressed too, but I think that some risk is warrented, and I really do hope we land men on Mars in my life time. Unfortunately the dreamers seem to be outnuumbered by the people who say that life is too precious to risk on exploration, (I wonder if they drive...) the people say that it's too expensive to persue with all the earthly problems around and then those that are just unimaginative and earth bound in general. Le Sigh.

-Benito

[Shapley]

Just think how dangerous it was for Magellen, Cook, Columbus, Darwin, etc.

If it weren't for those willing to risk life for the purpose of exploration, we would still be living in trees, if at all.

V/R
Shapley