Fun fact: When they land and get back to the carrier, Tom Hanks shakes the hand of the carrier's captain, dressed in white dress uniform. The captain is the actual Jim Lowell.
I think it's funny how in Forrest Gump, Lt. Dan says "If you're ever a shimp boat Captain I'll be your first mate. The day you're a shrimp boat Captain, that's the day I'm an astronaut!" and the next movie Tom Hanks and Gary Sinese did together they both played astronauts.
It's actually a reference in Forrest Gump to later in the film when Lieutenant Dan reveals his 'magic legs'. 'Titanium alloy, same stuff they used on the space shuttle.' He had, in one sense at least, become an astronaut. I believe the fact that they both starred as astronauts in their next role together is just an amazing co-incidence. They do happen, I've seen a few.
First they met and served together in Forrest Gump, then Forrest became a prison guard while Lt. Dan became a psychologist I believe it was, then they both decided to become Astronauts. Forrest and Lt. Dan are awesome, I want another movie with Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise.
Not just based on a true story, it basically IS a true story. The only deviations are things like the arguments between the crew to add drama and tension.
@D G I've also read that they already had a procedure for the square filter into the round hole, so they just sent that up when it was needed, rather than the whole "we gotta figure it out, but breathe normally in the meantime" scenes that the movie had.
And because trajectory wasnt perfect in re-entry, communications did take longer than usual, as they spent longer cutting through the ionized air at a shallower angle than normal. It was 6 minutes of radio blackout.
@@zimvader25 All this time I never realized the reason the blackout took longer was that they went in too shallow. Of course it would take longer. Thank you!
@@billparrish4385 I think the shallower angle leading to a longer time to get past the ionized air is true, but I think there must have been more to it than that. My memory of what I saw on TV at the time matches up pretty well with what you see here in the movie - we saw the capsule coming down with deployed chutes before we heard the the astronauts on the radio. I don't believe the chutes could have deployed before the capsule got past the ionization, so it seems to me that they must have had trouble establishing a communication link for a while after that for some reason. Either that, or the astronauts were keeping quiet to pull a massive prank on the whole world for a minute!
A very few details were dramatized a little, but the attention to keeping it true to life was painstaking. All the expensive, meticulously built hardware brought down by a wire in a tank that snuck through a gap in processes, a dozen things that all had to go wrong in perfect sequence.
@@jackprescott9652 I disagree. The truth is that the space program has ALWAYS been a life-risking proposition. Why do you think all those early astronauts we're former test pilots? The shuttle became so routine that the public started to think it was "safe". No such thing.
They were hurdling through space, away from Earth. They not only limped a crippled spacecraft around the moon, but also had a successful re-entry. Not only did these guys escape death, but their bodies weren't lost to space.
One of the most historically and scientifically accurate movies I’ve ever seen. From what I’ve heard, the only inaccuracy in it was that no one was shouting at each other. Everyone was absolutely calm in real life. Understandable that they used shouting to relay the message to the audience that the crew was really in trouble. Fun fact: Thanks to the US military and their plane affectionately dubbed the “Vomit Comet”, the actors were able to go up more than 1,000 times to achieve actual zero gravity for more than 30 seconds, which led to what you see in the movie! Pretty cool!
There are quite a few little inaccuracies, mostly to heighten the drama, but there are a couple fairly sizable ones. The largest being the manual burn they made to fix their course. In the movie, they are flying toward the Earth, but that is wrong. They had to fire perpendicular to their course in order to change its path. But they probably felt the casual audience would not understand. Another visible one was having Mattingly watching the launch, he was WAY too close. Nobody was allowed within three miles of the launch pad, and there were roadblocks to prevent anyone from getting nearer. Astronauts are not exceptions to this rule, and if anything, they would respect such rules to an even greater degree, being former military men understanding the importance of following orders.
There is no such thing as zero gravity. Gravity is still causing them to fall toward the Earth -- it's just that the plane is plummeting at the same speed as they are falling within it.
@@firstenforemost 0G is merely the effect you’re feeling relative to your present state of reference, in this case inside your spacecraft. Saying there is no such thing as 0G, it’s like saying there is no such thing as 3G during takeoff.
@@barreloffun10 Considering "weight" is just the effect of gravity on mass, I think you're kinda splitting hairs here, if there's even a hair to split.
Fun fact, my father worked on the Lunar Module and was called back for four days to go over everything on the Lunar Module as it was the crew's lifeboat.
This movie is a tribute to intelligence, persistence, and teamwork. As I write this, Jim Lovell is still alive at the age of 94. "I love the moon." - It's in your name, Michelle Moon Sugar. The actress who played Jim Lovell's mother Blanch Lovell is Jean Speegle Howard, mother of the movie's director, Ron Howard. There are so many great movies based on true stories. Here are some you might want to watch (if you haven't already): Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Into the Wild (2007) Spotlight (2015) Goodfellas (1990) 12 Years a Slave (2013) Captain Phillips (2013) American Hustle (2013) Raging Bull (1980) City of God (2002)
35:09 "I am nervous in the whole movie..." Whilst some films struggle to maintain a sense of foreboding and tension through the greater part of a film, it's a huge tribute to the acting of Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and the other performances here, that they achieve just that. Outstanding film, well appreciated by our Homies duo.
When this happened I was a child and I remember the whole world coming together hoping for the safe return of three men. It was an incredible moment in history.
How much do you remember? I'd love to hear more about your experience watching these events unfold. It truly was a historic moment and a true testament to the people on the ground and in the capsule that everyone came home alive.
He only calculated for 2 people because the LEM (lunar lander) only holds two people. Two men land on the moon, the third, Swigart, stays aboard the command module in orbit around the moon, doing other science things. The technology went WAY beyond design specs.
There was a series that was produced by Tom Hanks (and others) called "From the Earth to the Moon". It is about the Apollo program. Well worth a watch. Also, check out a movie called "The Dish", which is based on a true story, but with fictional characters, about a radio telescope in Australia that was involved in the Moon landing program. It stars Sam Neill, who was in Jurassic Park.
The mistake about the air supply calculation is undersstandable. A normal mission would have had only two men in the lander and Haise was used to doing the math that way.
Another fun fact... My aunt and uncle were engineers at NASA during Apollo thru the Challenger investigation. My uncle and I, later, talked alot about those times. He said the computer on the original, $2 Casio wristwatch that simply showed digital time, was more advanced than most of what they had for calculations. If you watch footage, and I think it showed some in this move, most/ all calculations were done with pencil, paper and a slide rule. They were "double checked" simply by someone else doing the same calculation.
Not correct. Data was processed by IBM 360 Mainframe computers on the ground. Without them there is no mission control or Apollo missions. The guidance computers onboard were a lot more sophisticated then a $2 wrist watch. It had to be lean, reliable and powerful enough to do the job. IT was quit an achievement. I would compare it more to a TI programmable calculator of the late 70's. Of course your Iphone of today is more powerful by exponential orders of magnitude. While they had slide rules, the calculations in that scene are addition and subtraction. A slide rule does mult and div. So that seems like it was more for drama.
@@AI_Image_Master My 1960's slide rule from High School multiplies, divides, calculates squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, logarithms, sines and cosines, tangents and cotangents.
I love how director Ron Howard showed how Jim’s daughter so distraught at the news that the Beatles broke up! 😄 You should also watch his documentary on them called “Eight Days A Week”.
25:41 Michelle is right. Ellie wants to be sheltered from the harsh reality for as long as possible, but most people I've known would be furious if they found out you kept that kind of news from them. When my mom was looking at bypass surgery and later at cancer, my older sister, whom I would have preferred not to tell because she couldn't do anything to help and who gets panicky and over emotional, thanked me for telling her and literally said "I may not be able to help her, but at least I can worry about her." Worrying doesn't do anything for the victims of disasters, but it's therapeutic for the people the people who care about them by making them feel involved and making them feel like they're doing something.
Worry is unpleasant, but one has to consider the goal of the process, not just its effect. Injections are also unpleasant, but dying from mumps is worse. Worry helps you prepare for various outcomes in times of uncertainty. The alternative is to suddenly be thrust into an outcome you probably weren't expecting without warning, and that's not just unpleasant but, sometimes, actually traumatic. I understand Ellie's points about not wanting to inflict suffering unnecessarily, which is why we sometimes keep things from people who can't be expected to responsibly make the choice about whether to know or not (eg children, etc.). The problem with that strategy, though, is that, consciously or unconsciously, protection often becomes a cage. Taking someone else's control of their own life from them, even with the best of intentions, tends to get real ugly, real fast.
Which would have worked better if they stuck with the fact that Jim was actually the one flying, not Swigert. Its one thing that kinda drives me nuts about most space movies, claiming the "Pilot" is the one flying, rather than the "Commander" (the only movie I know of where this is properly addressed is "The Core", with Bruce Greenwood as the Shuttle Commander). The only reason the second position is called "Pilot" is because the days of Gemini, when the Astronauts turned down the names "Pilot" and "Co-Pilot" because not a single one of them wanted to be called "Co-Pilot". So, NASA shrugged its shoulders and said "Commander" and "Pilot" to keep them happy. The Command Module Pilot only ever pilots the Command Module when the Commander and Lunar Module Pilot are away in the Lunar Module. The CMP manning the controls during the rendezvous and docking procedure, while at the same time, the CDR does the same from the Lunar Module, using the upward-looking window. But if the Commander is on board the Command Module, he is the one flying. The Lunar Module Pilot never gets to pilot anything. So while both craft are docked, the positions are more like this: Commander = Pilot CM Pilot = Navigator LM Pilot = Engineer
In his Mercury flight, John Glenn encountered some small glowing objects circling around his space capsule; he wondered if they might be intelligent life forms. Turns out they were frozen droplets of urine from his last urine dump.
Wonderful reaction, ladies. As an engineer myself, it's always interesting to me to see non-technical people react to events that are very clear to those who are in technical fields. Ellie, always, wears her heart on her sleeve. I hope the police never question you for anything, Ellie. You'll collapse under questioning :) You're such a sweetie.
22:38 The scene when the astronauts lose their tempers was there strictly for Hollywood drama. It never actually happened, and Tom Hanks' speech about bouncing off the walls and ending up back where they started is almost an exact quote of the real Jim Lovell's explanation for why they didn't lose their composure despite the extreme stress of the situation. One of the crew (might have been Lovell, but I can't remember) said the two things you never talked about were being scared and how bad it smelled inside the spacecraft. Another great example of that coolness under pressure is the first lunar landing. Listening to the transmission, you would never guess from tone of voice that they suddenly saw that the landing site was strewn with boulders and unsafe to land on, so they were desperately searching for a place they could land while seconds away from running out of fuel and crashing. That kind of astronaut stoicism was parodied in a hilarious Second City TV comedy skit in which budget cuts forced the National Endowment for the Arts and NASA to pool their resources. Astronauts performed the play "Murder in the Cathedral" dressed in spacesuits and monk's robes, and they delivered all the dramatic dialogue in a flat, emotionless monotone.
Had the honor and pleasure of meeting Mr. Jim Lovell when he spoke at a meeting I was at many years ago. I knew I was was in the presence of greatness. I also remember watching the Apollo 11 landing live when I was young. I will never forget.
A couple of clarifications and fun facts: Apollo 1 didn't blow up; during testing on the launch pad there was an electrical fire, they couldn't get the hatch open, and the astronauts died in the fire. Space junk is a potential problem these days, but the first stage did not stay in orbit, it fell into the ocean. The service module and the LEM eventually fell back to the earth and burned up in the atmosphere. The shots showing weightlessness were actually shot on a set built in the "Vomit Comet," an airplane designed to reproduce free-fall conditions. The woman who played Lovell's mother was actually the mother of director Ron Howard. The captain talking to Lovell on the aircraft carrier was the real-life Jim Lovell. The filmmakers offered to make him an Admiral in the movie, but he said, "I retired as a Captain, and a Captain I will stay." The Artemis program is NASA's current mission to return to the moon, with the end goal of setting up a permanent or at least long-term presence on the moon. The Space Launch System, or SLS, has had a lot of problems with budget and deadlines, but NASA currently has the SLS scheduled to test launch the unmanned Artemis 1 to the moon in May of this year. SpaceX's Starship will probably play a major role in establishing a permanent base on the moon. So you guys will live to see that much happen at least.
The primary issue with returning to the moon these days is, NASA is never allowed anything remotely near the massive budgets or industrial might as they had in the 60s. They're constantly expected to do more with less,... while at the same time, Congress keeps trying to turn NASA projects into job farms. One of the reasons the Space Shuttle budget blew way out of control, and Constellation practically imploded. I personally am happy Ares I wasn't pushed into service. The thought of a manned spacecraft on top off an entirely solid-rocket first stage... just churns my stomach something awful. But then... I've been super paranoid about Solids ever since Challenger (STS-51-L)
Incredible true story of people that solved problem after problem until eventually they were able to make it to the safety of Earth. Survival in space is tedious and requires great problem solving skills, but more than that, it still is dependent on chance and either a lot of good or bad luck.
Another good space history drama you would like is "The Right Stuff" that's about the beginning if NASA itself. Also recommend the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" (1995) with Tom Hanks, to learn more about the Apollo One fire at 5:25, and the entire Apollo program as well as a couple of Gemini missions and one Mercury. It's considered a great companion piece to the Apollo 13 movie here. BTW, the man in the captain's uniform shaking Tom Hanks hand at 41:30 is the real Jim Lovell doing a cameo! Michelle, what you say here at 43:34 is why you would like From The Earth To The Moon! And there are missions in the works by the US and China to send people back to the moon in a few years.
I actually put "From The Earth to the Moon" above "The Right Stuff", as the latter plays a little too loose with history, especially with its unfair hatchet job of Gus Grissom.
@@k1productions87 I remember Tom Wolfe's (otherwise excellent) book was skeptical about Grissom's account of events, and the movie was just an adaptation of that. I think the problem was that the press did not have all the information that NASA had, and by the time the movie came out, engineers at NASA had internally confirmed that the Mercury hatch design was faulty, and Grissom's account was accurate. But as far as I know, there was never an official press release from the government that exonerated Grissom and put the issue to bed in the public sphere.
@@Johnny_Socko I would imagine there would’ve been some kind of announcement, considering Grissom flew the first Gemini flight, and was scheduled for the first Apollo. In addition to that, the intended explosive hatch on Apollo was abandoned in favor of a far more complicated system, specifically to avoid such problems in the future. The tragic irony is, the more complicated multiple hatch is what cost Grissom, White, and Chaffee their lives. Wally Schirra on Mercury Sigma 7 had also proved that there was no way to accidentally manually trigger the hatch. once his capsule was safely on the deck of the carrier, he hit the trigger to see just what it would take to activate it. He had to hit that thing so hard that even threw the glove of his spacesuit, it left a notable bruise on his hand, a bruise that Grissom did not have anywhere on his body
When I saw the thumbnail for this video I was happy and excited. I have enjoyed reactions to 'Apollo 13' above reactions for just-about any other movie or TV show. I love the music, the script, the acting, the direction, the sound, and the story; just a bunch of competent people confronting numerous complex problems and solving them in order that they may be okay. 41:29 - that man wearing the naval officer uniform who shakes Tom Hanks's hand is the real James Lovell. He liked the movie when he watched it, and the real Gene Kranz - the Flight director - liked the movie too. In fact, he entitled his book 'Failure is Not an Option' after the line the screenwriters gave Ed Harris for the movie. I love it; and I love you guys. You are fun to watch, I like your selection of movies and TV shows to which you have reacted, and I hope I enjoy whatever new stuff you upload in the coming weeks and months.
I was twenty years old during the Apollo 13 mission.. and the suspense is always there.. no matter how many times I watch this film. Thank you, Ladies. It's been a pleasure. Great reactions!
One little bit of trivia: right at the end when Tom Hanks shakes hands with the commander of the ship in a white uniform after they land on the deck, that man he shook hands with was the real Jim Lovell (the astronaut that Tom Hanks was acting as). The film makers put Jim Lovell into the final scene as an extra.
Ron Howard directed Apollo 13 and a lot of his family members have appearances in this movie. His daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, is one of the girls waving to Jack Swigert before the launch, I believe she’s wearing a yellow dress. His father plays the priest who is at the Lovell house during the re-entry sequence, he had a few lines, but they were cut. And finally, his mother plays Jim Lovell’s mother, who has the best joke in the whole film with, “Are you boys in the space program too?”
Fun Fact: Ron Howard directed this movie. His daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, directed an episode of The Mandalorian where she recreated a ship burning up upon entering the atmosphere in the same manner.
Also watch "The Right Stuff", "First Man" and "Hidden Figures". Saturn V rocket ... 7.5 million pounds thrust, initial weight 6.5 million pounds. The rocket has to be held to the ground with 4 giant clamps, until the main engines are fully up to speed.
The Captain, not the Admiral. Jim Lovell was offered to be the Admiral on the ship, but he adamantly insisted "I retired from the Navy as a Captain, and I will not be anything but a Captain" even wearing his own actual uniform in the scene. Perhaps he felt it would be disrespectful to play a higher rank than he himself ever actually was.
This movie is special to me because I was born after the launch and before the return of Apollo 13 and my Dad worked at Kennedy Space Center at the time. The launch took place on 13 April 1970 and I was born on the 16th. So literally during this crisis. I have a rare video of the launch in our family's home movies. It was a beautiful near perfect launch.
Interesting fact: The guy in the white uniform that Tom Hanks shakes hands with on the recovery ship is the REAL Jim Lovell in his old military uniform.
I too cried m eyes out, & saw all this go down LIVE! I loved our Apollo Space Program, & could name many Astronauts. My beloved Mom lit candles for their safe return, & even prayed out loud in Spanish. I was 12 & watching on our Black & White TV.
The Right Stuff is also a good movie it tells of events leading up to this movie.... the rocket stage that you thought that they leave in space actually re-enters Earth's atmosphere and Burns up.
Almost. The first stage isn't high enough or fast enough to burn up. It crashes in the ocean, relatively intact. So instead of being space junk, its ocean junk lol
@@trhansen3244 In what way? If it was the whole Test Pilot thing, I could probably understand that part of it, as Apollo 13 was more exclusively about the mission. And the Edwards stuff was (for me) the strongest part of the film. It just peetered off when it came to Mercury, and some outright fabrication therein
Apollo 1 was a fired that happened on the launchpad weeks prior to its launch. It happened during a test, when the crew was fully suited up. A spark caused by exposed wiring caused the flash fire, which was spread through the cabin that was pressurized with 100% oxygen. The whole fire lasted about 15 seconds, but the things that really killed the crew was smoke inhalation, that got into their breathing lines. It was made doubly difficult because of the hatch design, which was changed after the fire.
Great reaction, I love watching your emotional reaction to the triumphant return of the ship. This is my favorite true historical heroic movie. I live about 5 miles from Houston Johnson Space Center, I drive on Nasa Rd regularly.
I lived through this. Those moments of tension were real especially the loss of radio contact towards the end. The computers that NASA used on these missions were way, way less powered than the phones in our pockets.
That line "Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you" always gives me a chill. He's saying that, while knowing they could all three be dead in the next couple of minutes.
The way this movie was filmed is amazing! To shoot the weightlessness, they had the actors in a plane called the vomit comet. The plane go up high, then flies straight down like its crashing for about a minute, then it shoots back up, and then straight down again. So during that minute of flying down, they are weightless
Actually, the movie you should watch that was the inspiration for Bosom Buddies is the classic comedy "Some Like it Hot". It's really old, but it's hilarious.
Fun facts: Not only is Jim Lovell the only astronaut to go to the moon twice (and not land on it in either mission), but (due to the moon's orbit making it nearly at its farthest from Earth during the mission) Lovell, Haise, and Swigert still hold (at the time of this post) the record of being the astronauts to travel furthest from Earth (400,171 kilometers from Earth).
This was Jim Lovell's 4th flight to space. Each mission required the studying and mastering the equivalent information as a college degree. And that's on top of his B.S. degree and graduating from the Navy's test pilot school. These were extraordinary people. Some things were over dramatized like the one engine failing on the second stage. They were already in the " go on four " bracket or box of the flight program, meaning the flight computers would adjust. In fact, one engine is normally shut off as the fuel is burnt. The actual loss of thrust was nor significant as the engine was about to be shut down anyway.
Fun fact: The amount of electricity they were talking about was incredibly small: the amount they needed to get transferred from the LEM to get home was less than half of what one modern iPhone battery holds. And the amount of processing power and memory in their computers was even more incredibly small. It was a miracle they could run a spacecraft with far less computing power than an old calculator.
The 3 astronauts that died were the Apollo 1 crew. It was during a test and there was an electrical fire in the spacecraft. Ed White, Roger Chaffee and Virgil "Gus" Grissom all died in the fire. 9:17 The "little jolt" when the first stage separates is real. It's such a violent jolt, the length of the rocket shrinks and stretches by almost a foot. 23:32 He only figured the Oxygen for 2 people because normally only 2 people would be in the LEM going down to the moon. Jack would have stayed in the Command Module in orbit. Fred just did the math the way he normally would without thinking about it being 3 people in the LEM instead of 2.
Everything that could go wrong happened. I loved when they took off their bio metrics. It was intense when they made it. Ed’s reaction said it all. It was a successful failed mission.
We live in Louisiana. We just took our 7th graders to NASA home station in Houston.We saw the actual rocket that was going next in the Apollo mission that got killed. You can NOT fathom how huge and amazing these ships are. In the late 60’s. I took photos and it doesn’t do it justice. This was last week. I was in awe!
05:33 Apollo 1 never flew. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a fire during a rehearsal test. Many things went wrong, and it wasn't just the door. 23:27 He only figured it for two people because has always and only ever done these calculations for two people. This is because the purpose of the LEM (Lunar Exploration Module) is to carry two people down to the surface of the moon while the third member stays on the CM (Command Module) orbiting the moon, waiting to rendezvous with the LEM party. Now the LEM has become a lifeboat for all three of the crew, but his subconscious hasn't caught up to the new reality yet.
I used to like it but there are a lot of scenes and acting that’s just too much and over the top. Lovell was cool as a cucumber when he says they’ve had a problem. A friend was on the ship at the end. Showed me a pic of Tom Hanks.
If you catch it quickly you will see the carrier captain who greets the crew. That was the real Jim Lovell, who himself retired from the navy as a captain. The director wanted to cast him as an admiral, but Lovell said "Nope. I retired as a captain and that's what I should be".
Turning around in space takes just about as much energy as it took to get you there in the first place, the only options for maneuvering was the Smaller module and even then it required them to sling shot around the moon just in order to have a chance at re-entry. Its still amazing to me that they did all this with pens and paper.
The leader at the space station, the one with the small blond hair was so calm. That is the perfect personality of a leader to stay calm in situations like this.
Regarding your closing comments: The U.S. does have a plan in place to return people to the surface of the moon very soon. The effort is called the "Artemis" program. (You can look it up online.) It has experienced several delays recently, but is still expected to land people there some time in the second half of this decade (2025-2029).
The reason the filters were different was that the lunar lander and the command module were made by two different companies. And I remember watching it that this was the only time I saw the capsule land in the sea.
The aircraft carrier commander at the end who shakes hands with tom Hanks is Jim Lovell apollo 13 commander. And the 2 gentleman watching with the elderly lady playing blanche lovell. Are the real apollo 11s Neil Armstrong and buzz Aldrin
The first part is true the real Jim Lovell appeared in the end scene - very cool. However actors played Armstrong & Aldrin in the scene with Blanche Lovell - Mark Wheeler played Neil Armstrong and Larry Williams played Buzz Aldrin.
I've lived in Florida for years and nothing compares to what a rocket launch is up close. Even miles away it's a sound you don't hear as much as you feel in your bones. The engineers back in the day were absolutely unmatched in their abilities.
The water dripping on them during re-entry was the condensation on the panels, as they experienced deceleration through the atmosphere (multiple G force). The condensation was because it got so cold in the ship, out in space. Even after the outside heating of re-entry, and splashdown, it was STILL so cold inside that, when the divers opened the hatch, humid Pacific air rushed in and FOG formed inside the cabin ! :)
The dream sequence actually happened to Marilyn Lovell. She and her husband had just watched the movie Marooned, about two astronauts stranded in earth orbit (we didn't have loads of launch vehicles waiting around). As for going to the bathroom, the astronauts went on a special diet before the mission that produced little or no solid waste. There _is_ a toilet on the space station, and it involves vacuum cleaner style suction and a spatula for ... "assistance." Aren't you glad you asked?
I know documentaries aren't really the focus of the channel but theres a great one on Netflix on the Challenger space shuttle disaster called Challenger: The Final Flight. Its sad but its really interesting. It gives you a history of the space shuttle program and it goes in detail about what happened during and after the doomed launch.
1970: a handful of people work out a problem originating 10.000 miles away, in a place they can't see, with tools they can't operate, via radio with a 10 second delay. 2020: "Hey guys! Watch this new detergent challenge on TikTok!" please, aliens out there.... PLEASE land already!
It helps when watching this movie to have a rudimentary understanding of the systems and procedures of the mission. It isn't necessary but it helps. This isn't science fiction it's basically a docudrama of a real life mission. Mostly accurate portrayal of real life American hero's performing under extreme stress to save lives. Quite an inspiring story.
Gene Kranz, played Ed Harris, was the flight director for many years and his wife would make him a new vest for each flight. That flight was a white vest and you can see photos of him wearing it for that fight. Jim Lovell is still alive and he is 95.
Loved the reaction... Interesting fact for ya... when they safely returned and everyone was celebrating.. when the boss sits down.. that man kneeling behind him is the real guy .. his name is Gene Krantz ...
I've been waiting for this since the Forrest Gump reaction. It's a special treat when Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise team up, and this is one of my favorite historical moments. 32:02 This is probably my favorite part of the movie. Lady just met the first two people to walk on the moon, and asks if they're in the space program too lol. Was just so adorable to me. 45:24 ..... Was that Savage Garden?
I remember watching the Apollo 11 landing on TV, I'm looking forward to seeing the next moon landing in 2026 (ish). Awesome piece of work to get 13 home (and I love this movie).
Apollo 1, the capsule had pure O² in the cabin and a spark caused a fire. There was an issue with the latch and the ground crew couldn't open it to get the astronauts out and they burned to death. That's why the kid was wondering if the problem was "the door." Also, Ron Howard filmed the capsule shots inside the "Vomit Comet," a training plane that flies in a way to make periods of weightlessness.
Its not just the pure oxygen, but the fact it was pressurized to 17 psi It also wasn't a latch issue. The Hatch was in three separate parts. The BPC (boiler plate cover) hatch on the escape tower. The external hatch the CM which was more of a protective covering. And the internal hatch... which opened inward, not outward. And with an inward-opening hatch,... when the external pressure is 14.8 psi, and the 17psi inside jumped into the 20's with the fire, it was impossible to pull open until the pressure was equalized. And before that even had a chance to happen, the crew inside suffocated from the toxic fumes, when the oxygen hoses to their suits melted through. The only solace in this, they did not burn alive.
The new program is named after Apollo's sister Artemis. Apollo was a space race operation with a bare bones, no extras, close run march of firsts. Artemis is more substantial, consolidating and proceeding at a civilian pace. If an analogy helps more like a substantial Antarctic research expedition than a quick record breaking climb to the peak of Mt Everest. The first launch of the Artemis Program was a few days ago, June 28, from New Zealand. Check out the CAPSTONE mission. (Capitols because it's an acronym)
RIP Jack Swigert (August 30, 1931 - December 27, 1982), aged 51 And RIP Bill Paxton (May 17, 1955 - February 25, 2017), aged 61 You both will always be remembered as legends
Swigart wasn't a rookie; he was perfectly competent to fly the command module. In real life there was never any doubts about him. Ken Mattingly wasn't the one who figured out how to solve the power problem; that was John Aaron, the guy he was working with in the movie.
In fact most of the procedures that were being made up on the fly in the movie were already made years earlier. This was just the first time they were ever put into actual practice.
Especially the part about the CO2 filters. That had been worked out years previously. The bit about brainstorming the procedure was very good Hollywood, but apocryphal.
@@mrwidget42 Especially when they go to the effort of showing the guy being congratulated for making it. I hope the character being portrayed was supposed to be the guy who developed the procedures years earlier, and not giving undue credit to the person who didn’t do it
In the early 2000s, I was working on Long Island and the Chief Technology Officer at my company had been an engineer at Grumman working on the ascent/descent engine for the LEM. I asked him questions for hours.
Ellie sure got invested in the story. I lost count how many times she cried. I cry every time I watch this movie. There's nothing better than a movie that makes you cry with a happy ending.
No matter I lived through that return; no matter how many times I watch the movie, or a reaction to it; that wait for the chutes to open and to hear Tom Hanks' voice always makes my stomach churn and sometimes I shed tears. I think it means more to me than Neil Armstrong walking on the moon on my 7th birthday. kerk
I don't think you want me to bore you with my long spiel, but if you want to learn more about the history, and see more things like this, I'll give you the must see list. First, see one of my favorite movies, "The Right Stuff", based on Tom Wolfe's book of the same name, which was an examination of what type of personality it takes to be one of the people that have "the right stuff" to put themselves in imminent danger to push out the inside of the envelope, that it took to be an astronaut. It starts with legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager being the first one to break the sound barrier. I know you've probably never heard of him, but trust me! Chuck Yeager was the original bad ass pilot, that was the example of having the right stuff, and they say that deep in their hearts, every pilot secretly wishes that they were Chuck Yeager! From there, it goes on to tell the story of the original Mercury 7 which were the first American astronauts. Off of the success of "Apollo 13", Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, etc. produced a great HBO mini series called "From The Earth To The Moon". In the first episode, they quickly introduce the crop of new astronauts that followed the Mercury 7, like Jim Lovell who was played by Tom Hanks in this one, and it brushes over the Gemini missions where they had to create the technology and figure out how to make the Apollo missions possible. The second episode is about the Apollo 1 disaster that you heard mentioned in this movie, which I find particularly emotional. The mini series goes on from there to show all of the Apollo Missions. There is also a good BBC mini series from like 2004, called "Space Race", which is about the competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to get a foot hold into space after the end of World War 2, and the beginning of the Cold War. The Germans had the best rocket scientists that were way ahead of everybody else with the emerging technology. At the end of the war, the U.S. nabbed up Werner Von Braun, and all the best German rocket scientists to lead our space program, but their efforts were stalled, and got off to a slow start, and in the beginning, the Soviets were way ahead. So, a lot of the mini series is focused on Sergei Korolev, who was the Soviet genius that was the mastermind behind the Soviet space program's success. There's other stuff too, but those three and Apollo 13 is a good crash course on the main history if you want to know it. I can suggest other stuff, but just start with that.
In Apollo 1, the three astronauts were killed when a fire broke out in the capsule. They were going through procedures. They had an electrical short that sparked and, in the 100% pure oxygen atmosphere of the capsule, rapidly propagated and they were unable to get the hatch open. The engines were not involved, nor was there an explosion. The hatch was redesigned and the capsule no longer had 100% oxygen atmosphere as a result. See yhat cassette player they were playing music from? Sony introduced their Walkman in 1979. Sure looks like NASA had one in 1970. The Lunar Module, their lifeboat, was only designed for two people, so out of habit, that would be the number plugged into an equation. It was never intended for 3.
Fun fact: When they land and get back to the carrier, Tom Hanks shakes the hand of the carrier's captain, dressed in white dress uniform.
The captain is the actual Jim Lowell.
Yes, at 41:31 in this video.
Jim Lowell was offered to play an admiral in the movie but he wanted to use he's real rank.
@@Chivaltic Well, he already had the right outfit.
Boo-Boo! It's Jim Lovell not Lowell.
The commentary Jim and his wife do on the blu ray is really interesting, too. She really did lose her ring in the shower.
I think it's funny how in Forrest Gump, Lt. Dan says "If you're ever a shimp boat Captain I'll be your first mate. The day you're a shrimp boat Captain, that's the day I'm an astronaut!" and the next movie Tom Hanks and Gary Sinese did together they both played astronauts.
It's actually a reference in Forrest Gump to later in the film when Lieutenant Dan reveals his 'magic legs'. 'Titanium alloy, same stuff they used on the space shuttle.' He had, in one sense at least, become an astronaut. I believe the fact that they both starred as astronauts in their next role together is just an amazing co-incidence. They do happen, I've seen a few.
First they met and served together in Forrest Gump, then Forrest became a prison guard while Lt. Dan became a psychologist I believe it was, then they both decided to become Astronauts.
Forrest and Lt. Dan are awesome, I want another movie with Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise.
@@OriginalPuro Lt. Dan was a detective when Forrest was a prison guard ;-P
Not just based on a true story, it basically IS a true story. The only deviations are things like the arguments between the crew to add drama and tension.
@D G I've also read that they already had a procedure for the square filter into the round hole, so they just sent that up when it was needed, rather than the whole "we gotta figure it out, but breathe normally in the meantime" scenes that the movie had.
And because trajectory wasnt perfect in re-entry, communications did take longer than usual, as they spent longer cutting through the ionized air at a shallower angle than normal. It was 6 minutes of radio blackout.
Yeah, listening to the actual recordings, everyone sounds like they're discussing what to get for dinner. Utterly composed.
@@zimvader25 All this time I never realized the reason the blackout took longer was that they went in too shallow. Of course it would take longer. Thank you!
@@billparrish4385 I think the shallower angle leading to a longer time to get past the ionized air is true, but I think there must have been more to it than that. My memory of what I saw on TV at the time matches up pretty well with what you see here in the movie - we saw the capsule coming down with deployed chutes before we heard the the astronauts on the radio. I don't believe the chutes could have deployed before the capsule got past the ionization, so it seems to me that they must have had trouble establishing a communication link for a while after that for some reason. Either that, or the astronauts were keeping quiet to pull a massive prank on the whole world for a minute!
I'm 70 years old & if you have any doubt, I can tell you...this film is 100% true. Everyone...I mean everyone expected those guys to die.
A very few details were dramatized a little, but the attention to keeping it true to life was painstaking. All the expensive, meticulously built hardware brought down by a wire in a tank that snuck through a gap in processes, a dozen things that all had to go wrong in perfect sequence.
No one, but no one expected the people on the Challenger or in the Columbia die. NASA is a mess now.
@@jackprescott9652 I disagree. The truth is that the space program has ALWAYS been a life-risking proposition. Why do you think all those early astronauts we're former test pilots? The shuttle became so routine that the public started to think it was "safe". No such thing.
@@Rickhorse1 the Public? The public can think whatever they want. It`s NASA that should be concerned.
They were hurdling through space, away from Earth. They not only limped a crippled spacecraft around the moon, but also had a successful re-entry.
Not only did these guys escape death, but their bodies weren't lost to space.
One of the most historically and scientifically accurate movies I’ve ever seen. From what I’ve heard, the only inaccuracy in it was that no one was shouting at each other. Everyone was absolutely calm in real life. Understandable that they used shouting to relay the message to the audience that the crew was really in trouble. Fun fact: Thanks to the US military and their plane affectionately dubbed the “Vomit Comet”, the actors were able to go up more than 1,000 times to achieve actual zero gravity for more than 30 seconds, which led to what you see in the movie! Pretty cool!
There are quite a few little inaccuracies, mostly to heighten the drama, but there are a couple fairly sizable ones.
The largest being the manual burn they made to fix their course. In the movie, they are flying toward the Earth, but that is wrong. They had to fire perpendicular to their course in order to change its path. But they probably felt the casual audience would not understand.
Another visible one was having Mattingly watching the launch, he was WAY too close. Nobody was allowed within three miles of the launch pad, and there were roadblocks to prevent anyone from getting nearer. Astronauts are not exceptions to this rule, and if anything, they would respect such rules to an even greater degree, being former military men understanding the importance of following orders.
There is no such thing as zero gravity. Gravity is still causing them to fall toward the Earth -- it's just that the plane is plummeting at the same speed as they are falling within it.
@@firstenforemost 0G is merely the effect you’re feeling relative to your present state of reference, in this case inside your spacecraft. Saying there is no such thing as 0G, it’s like saying there is no such thing as 3G during takeoff.
@@k1productions87 Well, weightlessness is a more accurate term.
@@barreloffun10 Considering "weight" is just the effect of gravity on mass, I think you're kinda splitting hairs here, if there's even a hair to split.
“Well, don’t you worry, honey. If they can get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy can land it.”
My favorite line.
Ron Howard’s mom!
Same here..
This...
"Are you boys with the space program?" is a close second
You can hear the steel in her voice.
Fun fact, my father worked on the Lunar Module and was called back for four days to go over everything on the Lunar Module as it was the crew's lifeboat.
This movie is a tribute to intelligence, persistence, and teamwork.
As I write this, Jim Lovell is still alive at the age of 94.
"I love the moon." - It's in your name, Michelle Moon Sugar.
The actress who played Jim Lovell's mother Blanch Lovell is Jean Speegle Howard, mother of the movie's director, Ron Howard.
There are so many great movies based on true stories. Here are some you might want to watch (if you haven't already):
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Into the Wild (2007)
Spotlight (2015)
Goodfellas (1990)
12 Years a Slave (2013)
Captain Phillips (2013)
American Hustle (2013)
Raging Bull (1980)
City of God (2002)
Glory
Odd thing is, Lovell looks a lot more like Kevin Costner than Tom Hanks.
I have met, and shaken hands, with Jim Lovell and Fred Haise. An absolute honour. They were both very humble and generous with their time.
35:09 "I am nervous in the whole movie..." Whilst some films struggle to maintain a sense of foreboding and tension through the greater part of a film, it's a huge tribute to the acting of Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and the other performances here, that they achieve just that. Outstanding film, well appreciated by our Homies duo.
I can't help but cry everything Elle cries... She got such a good soul
When this happened I was a child and I remember the whole world coming together hoping for the safe return of three men. It was an incredible moment in history.
How much do you remember? I'd love to hear more about your experience watching these events unfold. It truly was a historic moment and a true testament to the people on the ground and in the capsule that everyone came home alive.
He only calculated for 2 people because the LEM (lunar lander) only holds two people. Two men land on the moon, the third, Swigart, stays aboard the command module in orbit around the moon, doing other science things.
The technology went WAY beyond design specs.
"I don't care what anything was designed to do, I care what it CAN do" That's an alpha line right there.
@@dr.burtgummerfan439 That was the attitude that helped getting them back home.
There was a series that was produced by Tom Hanks (and others) called "From the Earth to the Moon". It is about the Apollo program. Well worth a watch.
Also, check out a movie called "The Dish", which is based on a true story, but with fictional characters, about a radio telescope in Australia that was involved in the Moon landing program. It stars Sam Neill, who was in Jurassic Park.
The Dish is a very good movie.
"The Dish" was a comedy as well.
And Tom Hank's wife appears in the From The Earth To The Moon series.
The mistake about the air supply calculation is undersstandable. A normal mission would have had only two men in the lander and Haise was used to doing the math that way.
Another fun fact...
My aunt and uncle were engineers at NASA during Apollo thru the Challenger investigation. My uncle and I, later, talked alot about those times. He said the computer on the original, $2 Casio wristwatch that simply showed digital time, was more advanced than most of what they had for calculations. If you watch footage, and I think it showed some in this move, most/ all calculations were done with pencil, paper and a slide rule. They were "double checked" simply by someone else doing the same calculation.
Not correct. Data was processed by IBM 360 Mainframe computers on the ground. Without them there is no mission control or Apollo missions. The guidance computers onboard were a lot more sophisticated then a $2 wrist watch. It had to be lean, reliable and powerful enough to do the job. IT was quit an achievement. I would compare it more to a TI programmable calculator of the late 70's. Of course your Iphone of today is more powerful by exponential orders of magnitude. While they had slide rules, the calculations in that scene are addition and subtraction. A slide rule does mult and div. So that seems like it was more for drama.
@@AI_Image_Master My 1960's slide rule from High School multiplies, divides, calculates squares and square roots, cubes and cube roots, logarithms, sines and cosines, tangents and cotangents.
I love how director Ron Howard showed how Jim’s daughter so distraught at the news that the Beatles broke up! 😄
You should also watch his documentary on them called “Eight Days A Week”.
IIRC in the commentary, Jim and Marilyn Lovell said they didn’t recall her being affected by it quite that much.
25:41 Michelle is right. Ellie wants to be sheltered from the harsh reality for as long as possible, but most people I've known would be furious if they found out you kept that kind of news from them. When my mom was looking at bypass surgery and later at cancer, my older sister, whom I would have preferred not to tell because she couldn't do anything to help and who gets panicky and over emotional, thanked me for telling her and literally said "I may not be able to help her, but at least I can worry about her." Worrying doesn't do anything for the victims of disasters, but it's therapeutic for the people the people who care about them by making them feel involved and making them feel like they're doing something.
Worry is unpleasant, but one has to consider the goal of the process, not just its effect. Injections are also unpleasant, but dying from mumps is worse. Worry helps you prepare for various outcomes in times of uncertainty. The alternative is to suddenly be thrust into an outcome you probably weren't expecting without warning, and that's not just unpleasant but, sometimes, actually traumatic.
I understand Ellie's points about not wanting to inflict suffering unnecessarily, which is why we sometimes keep things from people who can't be expected to responsibly make the choice about whether to know or not (eg children, etc.). The problem with that strategy, though, is that, consciously or unconsciously, protection often becomes a cage. Taking someone else's control of their own life from them, even with the best of intentions, tends to get real ugly, real fast.
My mom’s parents were at high school at the time and they watched the Apollo 13 mission on TV. My grandparents weren't married until July 20, 1971.
Best line in the movie was Jim Lovell's mother, "If they could make a washing machine fly, my Jimmy could land it".
Which would have worked better if they stuck with the fact that Jim was actually the one flying, not Swigert. Its one thing that kinda drives me nuts about most space movies, claiming the "Pilot" is the one flying, rather than the "Commander" (the only movie I know of where this is properly addressed is "The Core", with Bruce Greenwood as the Shuttle Commander). The only reason the second position is called "Pilot" is because the days of Gemini, when the Astronauts turned down the names "Pilot" and "Co-Pilot" because not a single one of them wanted to be called "Co-Pilot". So, NASA shrugged its shoulders and said "Commander" and "Pilot" to keep them happy.
The Command Module Pilot only ever pilots the Command Module when the Commander and Lunar Module Pilot are away in the Lunar Module. The CMP manning the controls during the rendezvous and docking procedure, while at the same time, the CDR does the same from the Lunar Module, using the upward-looking window.
But if the Commander is on board the Command Module, he is the one flying. The Lunar Module Pilot never gets to pilot anything. So while both craft are docked, the positions are more like this:
Commander = Pilot
CM Pilot = Navigator
LM Pilot = Engineer
In his Mercury flight, John Glenn encountered some small glowing objects circling around his space capsule; he wondered if they might be intelligent life forms.
Turns out they were frozen droplets of urine from his last urine dump.
Wonderful reaction, ladies. As an engineer myself, it's always interesting to me to see non-technical people react to events that are very clear to those who are in technical fields. Ellie, always, wears her heart on her sleeve. I hope the police never question you for anything, Ellie. You'll collapse under questioning :) You're such a sweetie.
22:38 The scene when the astronauts lose their tempers was there strictly for Hollywood drama. It never actually happened, and Tom Hanks' speech about bouncing off the walls and ending up back where they started is almost an exact quote of the real Jim Lovell's explanation for why they didn't lose their composure despite the extreme stress of the situation. One of the crew (might have been Lovell, but I can't remember) said the two things you never talked about were being scared and how bad it smelled inside the spacecraft.
Another great example of that coolness under pressure is the first lunar landing. Listening to the transmission, you would never guess from tone of voice that they suddenly saw that the landing site was strewn with boulders and unsafe to land on, so they were desperately searching for a place they could land while seconds away from running out of fuel and crashing.
That kind of astronaut stoicism was parodied in a hilarious Second City TV comedy skit in which budget cuts forced the National Endowment for the Arts and NASA to pool their resources. Astronauts performed the play "Murder in the Cathedral" dressed in spacesuits and monk's robes, and they delivered all the dramatic dialogue in a flat, emotionless monotone.
Yes. The producers felt the movie wouldn't "feel real" if everyone stayed calm & collected, but they did.
Had the honor and pleasure of meeting Mr. Jim Lovell when he spoke at a meeting I was at many years ago. I knew I was was in the presence of greatness. I also remember watching the Apollo 11 landing live when I was young. I will never forget.
Indeed, how can we forget what we saw then?
A couple of clarifications and fun facts:
Apollo 1 didn't blow up; during testing on the launch pad there was an electrical fire, they couldn't get the hatch open, and the astronauts died in the fire.
Space junk is a potential problem these days, but the first stage did not stay in orbit, it fell into the ocean. The service module and the LEM eventually fell back to the earth and burned up in the atmosphere.
The shots showing weightlessness were actually shot on a set built in the "Vomit Comet," an airplane designed to reproduce free-fall conditions.
The woman who played Lovell's mother was actually the mother of director Ron Howard.
The captain talking to Lovell on the aircraft carrier was the real-life Jim Lovell. The filmmakers offered to make him an Admiral in the movie, but he said, "I retired as a Captain, and a Captain I will stay."
The Artemis program is NASA's current mission to return to the moon, with the end goal of setting up a permanent or at least long-term presence on the moon. The Space Launch System, or SLS, has had a lot of problems with budget and deadlines, but NASA currently has the SLS scheduled to test launch the unmanned Artemis 1 to the moon in May of this year. SpaceX's Starship will probably play a major role in establishing a permanent base on the moon. So you guys will live to see that much happen at least.
The primary issue with returning to the moon these days is, NASA is never allowed anything remotely near the massive budgets or industrial might as they had in the 60s. They're constantly expected to do more with less,... while at the same time, Congress keeps trying to turn NASA projects into job farms. One of the reasons the Space Shuttle budget blew way out of control, and Constellation practically imploded. I personally am happy Ares I wasn't pushed into service. The thought of a manned spacecraft on top off an entirely solid-rocket first stage... just churns my stomach something awful. But then... I've been super paranoid about Solids ever since Challenger (STS-51-L)
Ellie's emotional reaction is all of us the first time seeing this movie.
Incredible true story of people that solved problem after problem until eventually they were able to make it to the safety of Earth. Survival in space is tedious and requires great problem solving skills, but more than that, it still is dependent on chance and either a lot of good or bad luck.
I often use the Apollo 13 approach with a problem. It doesn't matter what I would like, I've got to make do with only what I have, and nothing more.
Another good space history drama you would like is "The Right Stuff" that's about the beginning if NASA itself.
Also recommend the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" (1995) with Tom Hanks, to learn more about the Apollo One fire at 5:25, and the entire Apollo program as well as a couple of Gemini missions and one Mercury. It's considered a great companion piece to the Apollo 13 movie here. BTW, the man in the captain's uniform shaking Tom Hanks hand at 41:30 is the real Jim Lovell doing a cameo! Michelle, what you say here at 43:34 is why you would like From The Earth To The Moon! And there are missions in the works by the US and China to send people back to the moon in a few years.
I actually put "From The Earth to the Moon" above "The Right Stuff", as the latter plays a little too loose with history, especially with its unfair hatchet job of Gus Grissom.
@@k1productions87 Totally agree!
@@k1productions87 I remember Tom Wolfe's (otherwise excellent) book was skeptical about Grissom's account of events, and the movie was just an adaptation of that. I think the problem was that the press did not have all the information that NASA had, and by the time the movie came out, engineers at NASA had internally confirmed that the Mercury hatch design was faulty, and Grissom's account was accurate. But as far as I know, there was never an official press release from the government that exonerated Grissom and put the issue to bed in the public sphere.
@@Johnny_Socko I would imagine there would’ve been some kind of announcement, considering Grissom flew the first Gemini flight, and was scheduled for the first Apollo. In addition to that, the intended explosive hatch on Apollo was abandoned in favor of a far more complicated system, specifically to avoid such problems in the future. The tragic irony is, the more complicated multiple hatch is what cost Grissom, White, and Chaffee their lives.
Wally Schirra on Mercury Sigma 7 had also proved that there was no way to accidentally manually trigger the hatch. once his capsule was safely on the deck of the carrier, he hit the trigger to see just what it would take to activate it. He had to hit that thing so hard that even threw the glove of his spacesuit, it left a notable bruise on his hand, a bruise that Grissom did not have anywhere on his body
I got a pretty good recommendation here. You should definitely watch ‘October Sky.’ An absolute great movie, although somewhat underrated.
I was 14 when this happened; I remember watching on TV all the drama that played out till they landed. Was so tense! Great movie! Great reaction.
When I saw the thumbnail for this video I was happy and excited. I have enjoyed reactions to 'Apollo 13' above reactions for just-about any other movie or TV show. I love the music, the script, the acting, the direction, the sound, and the story; just a bunch of competent people confronting numerous complex problems and solving them in order that they may be okay.
41:29 - that man wearing the naval officer uniform who shakes Tom Hanks's hand is the real James Lovell. He liked the movie when he watched it, and the real Gene Kranz - the Flight director - liked the movie too. In fact, he entitled his book 'Failure is Not an Option' after the line the screenwriters gave Ed Harris for the movie.
I love it; and I love you guys. You are fun to watch, I like your selection of movies and TV shows to which you have reacted, and I hope I enjoy whatever new stuff you upload in the coming weeks and months.
I was twenty years old during the Apollo 13 mission.. and the suspense is always there.. no matter how many times I watch this film. Thank you, Ladies. It's been a pleasure. Great reactions!
One little bit of trivia: right at the end when Tom Hanks shakes hands with the commander of the ship in a white uniform after they land on the deck, that man he shook hands with was the real Jim Lovell (the astronaut that Tom Hanks was acting as). The film makers put Jim Lovell into the final scene as an extra.
Ron Howard directed Apollo 13 and a lot of his family members have appearances in this movie. His daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, is one of the girls waving to Jack Swigert before the launch, I believe she’s wearing a yellow dress. His father plays the priest who is at the Lovell house during the re-entry sequence, he had a few lines, but they were cut. And finally, his mother plays Jim Lovell’s mother, who has the best joke in the whole film with, “Are you boys in the space program too?”
Every time I watch the ending, I cry (w joy) just like Ellie. Humans doing what we do best: total dedication, effort & the “failure is not an option!”
Nominated for 9 Oscars including Best Picture but won for Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.
Fun Fact: Ron Howard directed this movie. His daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, directed an episode of The Mandalorian where she recreated a ship burning up upon entering the atmosphere in the same manner.
Bryce is also herself in this movie in small role. As " girl in yellow dress"
Also watch "The Right Stuff", "First Man" and "Hidden Figures". Saturn V rocket ... 7.5 million pounds thrust, initial weight 6.5 million pounds. The rocket has to be held to the ground with 4 giant clamps, until the main engines are fully up to speed.
I watched all this live in Florida with my Mom and brother when I was ten years old. It was intensely nerve-wracking.
The admiral who shakes Tom Hanks' hand at the end of the movie was played by the real-life Jim Lovell.
The Captain, not the Admiral. Jim Lovell was offered to be the Admiral on the ship, but he adamantly insisted "I retired from the Navy as a Captain, and I will not be anything but a Captain" even wearing his own actual uniform in the scene. Perhaps he felt it would be disrespectful to play a higher rank than he himself ever actually was.
The scene about adapting the co2 canister was the inspiration for the TV series 'Junkyard Wars'.
This movie is special to me because I was born after the launch and before the return of Apollo 13 and my Dad worked at Kennedy Space Center at the time. The launch took place on 13 April 1970 and I was born on the 16th. So literally during this crisis. I have a rare video of the launch in our family's home movies. It was a beautiful near perfect launch.
Interesting fact: The guy in the white uniform that Tom Hanks shakes hands with on the recovery ship is the REAL Jim Lovell in his old military uniform.
I too cried m eyes out, & saw all this go down LIVE! I loved our Apollo Space Program, & could name many Astronauts. My beloved Mom lit candles for their safe return, & even prayed out loud in Spanish. I was 12 & watching on our Black & White TV.
I love how Ellie gets so emotional, and Michelle just laughs haha
I seen tears in their eyes both of them tears.
Gene Kranz never said "Failure is not an option", but when he heard it he liked it so much, that he used it as the title for his autobiography.
The Right Stuff is also a good movie it tells of events leading up to this movie.... the rocket stage that you thought that they leave in space actually re-enters Earth's atmosphere and Burns up.
Almost. The first stage isn't high enough or fast enough to burn up. It crashes in the ocean, relatively intact. So instead of being space junk, its ocean junk lol
As much as I enjoy Apollo 13, which is a LOT, I think The Right Stuff is even better.
@@trhansen3244 In what way? If it was the whole Test Pilot thing, I could probably understand that part of it, as Apollo 13 was more exclusively about the mission. And the Edwards stuff was (for me) the strongest part of the film. It just peetered off when it came to Mercury, and some outright fabrication therein
Apollo 1 was a fired that happened on the launchpad weeks prior to its launch. It happened during a test, when the crew was fully suited up. A spark caused by exposed wiring caused the flash fire, which was spread through the cabin that was pressurized with 100% oxygen. The whole fire lasted about 15 seconds, but the things that really killed the crew was smoke inhalation, that got into their breathing lines. It was made doubly difficult because of the hatch design, which was changed after the fire.
Great reaction, I love watching your emotional reaction to the triumphant return of the ship. This is my favorite true historical heroic movie. I live about 5 miles from Houston Johnson Space Center, I drive on Nasa Rd regularly.
I lived through this. Those moments of tension were real especially the loss of radio contact towards the end. The computers that NASA used on these missions were way, way less powered than the phones in our pockets.
Hell, they were probably less powered than the pocket calculators we used in school during the 80’s.
That line "Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you" always gives me a chill.
He's saying that, while knowing they could all three be dead in the next couple of minutes.
I always loved this movie for its depiction of engineers and engineering. Many times engineers have to solve things in a big hurry. Love it!!
The first stage (largest part of the rocket) falls back to earth and crashes into the sea, it does not remain in space.
The way this movie was filmed is amazing! To shoot the weightlessness, they had the actors in a plane called the vomit comet. The plane go up high, then flies straight down like its crashing for about a minute, then it shoots back up, and then straight down again.
So during that minute of flying down, they are weightless
@@matthewdavidjarvis6039 it flies down at a 45⁰ angel. ... so yeah, its like its crashing
3:00 Lovell said during APOLLO 8 a guy had diarrhea and it floated around the capsule and smelled so bad he had to use an emergency helmet
Actually, the movie you should watch that was the inspiration for Bosom Buddies is the classic comedy "Some Like it Hot". It's really old, but it's hilarious.
Recently rewatched this after a long time. Mrs. Lovell is a real unsung hero of this movie.
Fun facts: Not only is Jim Lovell the only astronaut to go to the moon twice (and not land on it in either mission), but (due to the moon's orbit making it nearly at its farthest from Earth during the mission) Lovell, Haise, and Swigert still hold (at the time of this post) the record of being the astronauts to travel furthest from Earth (400,171 kilometers from Earth).
This is a happy, sad, scary, and action filled movie. My favorite part is when tom hanks says houston we have a problem".
At 41:34, the Navy captain saluting Tom Hanks is the real Jim Lovell.
This was Jim Lovell's 4th flight to space. Each mission required the studying and mastering the equivalent information as a college degree. And that's on top of his B.S. degree and graduating from the Navy's test pilot school. These were extraordinary people.
Some things were over dramatized like the one engine failing on the second stage. They were already in the " go on four " bracket or box of the flight program, meaning the flight computers would adjust. In fact, one engine is normally shut off as the fuel is burnt. The actual loss of thrust was nor significant as the engine was about to be shut down anyway.
Fun fact:
The amount of electricity they were talking about was incredibly small: the amount they needed to get transferred from the LEM to get home was less than half of what one modern iPhone battery holds.
And the amount of processing power and memory in their computers was even more incredibly small. It was a miracle they could run a spacecraft with far less computing power than an old calculator.
The 3 astronauts that died were the Apollo 1 crew. It was during a test and there was an electrical fire in the spacecraft.
Ed White, Roger Chaffee and Virgil "Gus" Grissom all died in the fire.
9:17 The "little jolt" when the first stage separates is real. It's such a violent jolt, the length of the rocket shrinks and stretches by almost a foot.
23:32 He only figured the Oxygen for 2 people because normally only 2 people would be in the LEM going down to the moon. Jack would have stayed in the Command Module in orbit. Fred just did the math the way he normally would without thinking about it being 3 people in the LEM instead of 2.
Everything that could go wrong happened. I loved when they took off their bio metrics. It was intense when they made it. Ed’s reaction said it all. It was a successful failed mission.
We live in Louisiana. We just took our 7th graders to NASA home station in Houston.We saw the actual rocket that was going next in the Apollo mission that got killed. You can NOT fathom how huge and amazing these ships are. In the late 60’s. I took photos and it doesn’t do it justice. This was last week. I was in awe!
trivia: your watch has more computing power than all the computers at NASA in 1970.
05:33 Apollo 1 never flew. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a fire during a rehearsal test. Many things went wrong, and it wasn't just the door.
23:27 He only figured it for two people because has always and only ever done these calculations for two people. This is because the purpose of the LEM (Lunar Exploration Module) is to carry two people down to the surface of the moon while the third member stays on the CM (Command Module) orbiting the moon, waiting to rendezvous with the LEM party.
Now the LEM has become a lifeboat for all three of the crew, but his subconscious hasn't caught up to the new reality yet.
One of My favorite historical movies. Love this. 😊♥️👍🏻
Me too.
I used to like it but there are a lot of scenes and acting that’s just too much and over the top. Lovell was cool as a cucumber when he says they’ve had a problem. A friend was on the ship at the end. Showed me a pic of Tom Hanks.
If you catch it quickly you will see the carrier captain who greets the crew. That was the real Jim Lovell, who himself retired from the navy as a captain. The director wanted to cast him as an admiral, but Lovell said "Nope. I retired as a captain and that's what I should be".
True.. Very True
Turning around in space takes just about as much energy as it took to get you there in the first place, the only options for maneuvering was the Smaller module and even then it required them to sling shot around the moon just in order to have a chance at re-entry. Its still amazing to me that they did all this with pens and paper.
The leader at the space station, the one with the small blond hair was so calm. That is the perfect personality of a leader to stay calm in situations like this.
Regarding your closing comments: The U.S. does have a plan in place to return people to the surface of the moon very soon. The effort is called the "Artemis" program. (You can look it up online.) It has experienced several delays recently, but is still expected to land people there some time in the second half of this decade (2025-2029).
"If _my_ husband was in that, I would be, like, 'You're NEVER going to space again!' " 😝 I bet the wives here said that very same thing!
I remember all this happening when I was a kid. Neighbors had just gotten a puppy, & named him Apollo.
Commander Jim Lovell is a legend. And as of today. 7 JUL 2022, he's still with us.
The reason the filters were different was that the lunar lander and the command module were made by two different companies.
And I remember watching it that this was the only time I saw the capsule land in the sea.
The aircraft carrier commander at the end who shakes hands with tom Hanks is Jim Lovell apollo 13 commander. And the 2 gentleman watching with the elderly lady playing blanche lovell. Are the real apollo 11s Neil Armstrong and buzz Aldrin
The first part is true the real Jim Lovell appeared in the end scene - very cool. However actors played Armstrong & Aldrin in the scene with Blanche Lovell - Mark Wheeler played Neil Armstrong and Larry Williams played Buzz Aldrin.
I've lived in Florida for years and nothing compares to what a rocket launch is up close. Even miles away it's a sound you don't hear as much as you feel in your bones. The engineers back in the day were absolutely unmatched in their abilities.
The water dripping on them during re-entry was the condensation on the panels, as they experienced deceleration through the atmosphere (multiple G force).
The condensation was because it got so cold in the ship, out in space.
Even after the outside heating of re-entry, and splashdown, it was STILL so cold inside that, when the divers opened the hatch, humid Pacific air rushed in and FOG formed inside the cabin ! :)
The dream sequence actually happened to Marilyn Lovell. She and her husband had just watched the movie Marooned, about two astronauts stranded in earth orbit (we didn't have loads of launch vehicles waiting around).
As for going to the bathroom, the astronauts went on a special diet before the mission that produced little or no solid waste. There _is_ a toilet on the space station, and it involves vacuum cleaner style suction and a spatula for ... "assistance."
Aren't you glad you asked?
I know documentaries aren't really the focus of the channel but theres a great one on Netflix on the Challenger space shuttle disaster called Challenger: The Final Flight. Its sad but its really interesting. It gives you a history of the space shuttle program and it goes in detail about what happened during and after the doomed launch.
1970: a handful of people work out a problem originating 10.000 miles away, in a place they can't see, with tools they can't operate, via radio with a 10 second delay.
2020: "Hey guys! Watch this new detergent challenge on TikTok!"
please, aliens out there.... PLEASE land already!
It helps when watching this movie to have a rudimentary understanding of the systems and procedures of the mission. It isn't necessary but it helps. This isn't science fiction it's basically a docudrama of a real life mission. Mostly accurate portrayal of real life American hero's performing under extreme stress to save lives. Quite an inspiring story.
Gene Kranz, played Ed Harris, was the flight director for many years and his wife would make him a new vest for each flight. That flight was a white vest and you can see photos of him wearing it for that fight. Jim Lovell is still alive and he is 95.
The guy who shakes Tom Hanks' hand at 41:31 on the aircraft carrier is the REAL Jim Lovell, playing the ship's captain.
Loved the reaction... Interesting fact for ya... when they safely returned and everyone was celebrating.. when the boss sits down.. that man kneeling behind him is the real guy .. his name is Gene Krantz ...
I've been waiting for this since the Forrest Gump reaction. It's a special treat when Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise team up, and this is one of my favorite historical moments. 32:02 This is probably my favorite part of the movie. Lady just met the first two people to walk on the moon, and asks if they're in the space program too lol. Was just so adorable to me. 45:24 ..... Was that Savage Garden?
The navy captain who greets the apollo13 crew at the end is Jim Lovell,who Tom hanks plays.
I remember watching the Apollo 11 landing on TV, I'm looking forward to seeing the next moon landing in 2026 (ish). Awesome piece of work to get 13 home (and I love this movie).
Apollo 1, the capsule had pure O² in the cabin and a spark caused a fire. There was an issue with the latch and the ground crew couldn't open it to get the astronauts out and they burned to death. That's why the kid was wondering if the problem was "the door." Also, Ron Howard filmed the capsule shots inside the "Vomit Comet," a training plane that flies in a way to make periods of weightlessness.
Its not just the pure oxygen, but the fact it was pressurized to 17 psi
It also wasn't a latch issue. The Hatch was in three separate parts. The BPC (boiler plate cover) hatch on the escape tower. The external hatch the CM which was more of a protective covering. And the internal hatch... which opened inward, not outward.
And with an inward-opening hatch,... when the external pressure is 14.8 psi, and the 17psi inside jumped into the 20's with the fire, it was impossible to pull open until the pressure was equalized. And before that even had a chance to happen, the crew inside suffocated from the toxic fumes, when the oxygen hoses to their suits melted through. The only solace in this, they did not burn alive.
The captain who's shaking Tom Hank's hand after he's aboard the aircraft carrier...
That's the real Jim Lovell.
The new program is named after Apollo's sister Artemis. Apollo was a space race operation with a bare bones, no extras, close run march of firsts. Artemis is more substantial, consolidating and proceeding at a civilian pace. If an analogy helps more like a substantial Antarctic research expedition than a quick record breaking climb to the peak of Mt Everest. The first launch of the Artemis Program was a few days ago, June 28, from New Zealand. Check out the CAPSTONE mission. (Capitols because it's an acronym)
Kathleen quinlan and ed harris were nominated as best supporting actress and best supporting actor in the movie apollo 13 at the 68th academy awards.
RIP Jack Swigert (August 30, 1931 - December 27, 1982), aged 51
And
RIP Bill Paxton (May 17, 1955 - February 25, 2017), aged 61
You both will always be remembered as legends
Swigart wasn't a rookie; he was perfectly competent to fly the command module. In real life there was never any doubts about him.
Ken Mattingly wasn't the one who figured out how to solve the power problem; that was John Aaron, the guy he was working with in the movie.
In fact most of the procedures that were being made up on the fly in the movie were already made years earlier. This was just the first time they were ever put into actual practice.
Especially the part about the CO2 filters. That had been worked out years previously. The bit about brainstorming the procedure was very good Hollywood, but apocryphal.
@@mrwidget42 Especially when they go to the effort of showing the guy being congratulated for making it. I hope the character being portrayed was supposed to be the guy who developed the procedures years earlier, and not giving undue credit to the person who didn’t do it
In the early 2000s, I was working on Long Island and the Chief Technology Officer at my company had been an engineer at Grumman working on the ascent/descent engine for the LEM. I asked him questions for hours.
Ellie sure got invested in the story. I lost count how many times she cried. I cry every time I watch this movie. There's nothing better than a movie that makes you cry with a happy ending.
No matter I lived through that return; no matter how many times I watch the movie, or a reaction to it; that wait for the chutes to open and to hear Tom Hanks' voice always makes my stomach churn and sometimes I shed tears. I think it means more to me than Neil Armstrong walking on the moon on my 7th birthday. kerk
I don't think you want me to bore you with my long spiel, but if you want to learn more about the history, and see more things like this, I'll give you the must see list.
First, see one of my favorite movies, "The Right Stuff", based on Tom Wolfe's book of the same name, which was an examination of what type of personality it takes to be one of the people that have "the right stuff" to put themselves in imminent danger to push out the inside of the envelope, that it took to be an astronaut. It starts with legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager being the first one to break the sound barrier. I know you've probably never heard of him, but trust me! Chuck Yeager was the original bad ass pilot, that was the example of having the right stuff, and they say that deep in their hearts, every pilot secretly wishes that they were Chuck Yeager! From there, it goes on to tell the story of the original Mercury 7 which were the first American astronauts.
Off of the success of "Apollo 13", Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, etc. produced a great HBO mini series called "From The Earth To The Moon". In the first episode, they quickly introduce the crop of new astronauts that followed the Mercury 7, like Jim Lovell who was played by Tom Hanks in this one, and it brushes over the Gemini missions where they had to create the technology and figure out how to make the Apollo missions possible. The second episode is about the Apollo 1 disaster that you heard mentioned in this movie, which I find particularly emotional. The mini series goes on from there to show all of the Apollo Missions.
There is also a good BBC mini series from like 2004, called "Space Race", which is about the competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to get a foot hold into space after the end of World War 2, and the beginning of the Cold War. The Germans had the best rocket scientists that were way ahead of everybody else with the emerging technology. At the end of the war, the U.S. nabbed up Werner Von Braun, and all the best German rocket scientists to lead our space program, but their efforts were stalled, and got off to a slow start, and in the beginning, the Soviets were way ahead. So, a lot of the mini series is focused on Sergei Korolev, who was the Soviet genius that was the mastermind behind the Soviet space program's success.
There's other stuff too, but those three and Apollo 13 is a good crash course on the main history if you want to know it. I can suggest other stuff, but just start with that.
In Apollo 1, the three astronauts were killed when a fire broke out in the capsule. They were going through procedures. They had an electrical short that sparked and, in the 100% pure oxygen atmosphere of the capsule, rapidly propagated and they were unable to get the hatch open. The engines were not involved, nor was there an explosion. The hatch was redesigned and the capsule no longer had 100% oxygen atmosphere as a result. See yhat cassette player they were playing music from? Sony introduced their Walkman in 1979. Sure looks like NASA had one in 1970. The Lunar Module, their lifeboat, was only designed for two people, so out of habit, that would be the number plugged into an equation. It was never intended for 3.