History Buffs: Apollo 13

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[Music] hello and welcome history buffs my name is Nick Hodges and in this very special episode to celebrate reaching over 250,000 subscribers will be leaving the confines of our planet and venturing far out into space onboard Apollo 13 it's April 1970 less than a year has passed since Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon on Apollo 11 since then Apollo 12 made an equally successful landing and NASA is now launched Apollo 13 also intended to land on the moon but 56 hours later and over 200,000 miles from Earth an unforeseen accident occurs that jeopardizes the lives of the entire crew this film is based on the true story of what those astronauts went through and the collaborative effort of Mission Control to bring them back home alive and over the course of this review I'll be discussing in great length the history of the space race I'll be covering Apollo 13s mission and finally discuss how faithful was the film to what actually happened this is Apollo 13 [Music] [Music] isn't that super awesome that we now live in a time where we can look back on our own history and know that we have travelled into space not only that but we have walked on the surface of the Moon the very celestial body that every single human being that has ever lived as gazed upon it truly does capture the imagination and not a long ago such an idea only existed in the realm of science fiction in 1865 Jules Verne published the book from the earth to the moon and got remarkably close to how it actually happened just over a century later with the Apollo 8 mission in 1968 for example he decided that out of all the nations on earth that America would be the one to do it and through his calculations he predicted that the launch site would be in southern Florida he predicted that would be in the month of December there would take three days to travel to the moon and that the capsule would return to Earth by being recovered at sea the only big thing he got wrong was that in real life a rocket was used whilst the Americans in his book used a giant cannon but even so it's pretty amazing on how much he was able to get right so the question stands how did the romantic idea of traveling to the moon make the transition from science fiction to science fact well the roots of mankind's greatest journey can be found at the end of World War two in September 1944 and Hitler is desperate to find a solution in winning the war that was when he unleashed a new secret weapon the v2 rocket the world's first ballistic missile packed with explosives the v2 s were launched against allied cities such as Paris Antwerp and London although a terrifying weapon it's important to note that this was the first man-made object to cross the boundary of space before falling back to earth and hitting its target and this was certainly not lost on the German rocket scientists who developed it his name was Werner von Braun his life's work had always been in the pursuit of space travel and with his rocket technology he was convinced that it was the key - reaching the heavens in fact you could say he was pretty much obsessed with it and all other potential moral ambiguities were considered secondary for example later in life when he was questioned about his v2 rockets he's quoted as saying the rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet so when he joined the Nazi Party in 1937 he saw it as a career move one that would get him all the funding he would ever need to realize his dream in the final days of the war the Allies and the Soviets were pushing further and further into Germany secretly both sides were searching for von Braun as they could see the terrible potential his weapons had particularly the Americans as they were already developing their own super weapon at the time if von Braun's rocket technology could be combined with the atomic bomb it would be the most destructive weapon in history neither the Americans nor the Soviets knew it yet but they had just taken the first steps in what eventually became the space race now von Braun was perfectly aware that the Third Reich's days were numbered and if he wish to continue pursuing his dream of space travel it would have to be elsewhere especially since he knew that the Nazi officers who are protecting him and his team were under orders to shoot him if it looked like he was going to fall in enemy hands so obviously he had to escape and weighed his options on who to surrender to the Soviets were the less desirable choice since it was well known how they treated their prisoners only real option was to surrender to the Americans and after his escape that's exactly what he did in exchange for his full cooperation and knowledge the beatty rocket program von braun will be given full immunity and was whisked away to the united states with von braun at their reach the Soviets now had to play catch-up by scavenging abandoned v2 rocket factories and finding other German rocket engineers who had been left behind in East Germany they would also recruit one man to take von Braun's position as chief designer in their rocket program and that man was Sergei Korolev now he had been falsely imprisoned during the Great Purge under acts of sabotage in the Soviets rocket research institute and were sentenced to 10 years in one of Stalin's gulags in 1945 he was released after serving six years of his 10 year sentence by recommendation from one of the very men who had denounced him in the first place his old colleague Valentin Glushko now I'm sure glushko felt incredibly awkward about the whole situation but he was smart enough to know that sergei korolev was the man for the job not only was he an innovator a genius but for all intents and purposes he would become von Browns rival and ultimately his equal especially since they both shared the same dream of space travel on August 6 1945 the world was stunned when America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima this only served to strengthen Soviet resolve because not only do the Americans possess the a-bomb now but von Braun and his Rockets just a month before this however a Soviet spy called Klaus Fuchs who had been working on the Manhattan Project stole classified blueprints of the atom bomb and send them to Moscow on the 2nd of July 1945 once the Soviets witnessed the atomic bombs true destructive power in hiroshima and nagasaki stalin immediately ordered that their own bombs be built as well as continued developing their rocket technology the soviets were under the natural assumption that the next logical step for america would be to build missiles fitted with their atomic weapons but surprisingly that wasn't the case von Braun and his team weren't continuing their research the Americans were quite happy to let their department collect dust preferring to instead entrust future delivery of the bombs be made by planes just like they had done in Japan that was until they got their wake-up call on the 29th of August 1949 the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated on a test site in Sami Patton's Kazakhstan this time the West was horrified especially with how quickly the Soviet Union was able to do it in just a month later on the 25th of September 1949 the Soviets had successfully launched and in approved version of the v2 rocket which they dubbed the r2 it had twice the range of the b2 and was capable of hitting England 1949 was significant because it marked the beginning of the nuclear arms race between America and the Soviet Union each side working furiously to develop nuclear weapons capable of destroying each other and much of the time they spent doing so was very neck-and-neck on November 1st 1952 the Americans tested the world's first hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean on the 12th of August 1953 the Russians developed an h-bomb of their own and tested in Kazakhstan now some of you may be asking what does all this have to do with space travel well the development of the rocket technology necessary for space travel could only have been achieved with military funding so when Sergei Korolev was asked if he could build a new rocket that could transport a thermonuclear warhead to America he said yes he could because he knew that same rocket could also reach space and auto transport and launch a satellite and Earth's orbit the funding he got from the Soviet Union was exactly what he needed to make that happen in America however von Braun was having a much harder time selling the idea to the US Army I was hardly getting any funding at all for his rockets so what he decides to do instead and I find this very funny by the way is to go over the Army's head and instead sell the idea of spaceflight and traveling to the moon directly to the American people how does he do this well through Walt Disney of course here to reveal a plan for a trip around the moon is a chief of the guided missile development at the United States Army's Redstone Arsenal dr. Wernher von Braun a voyage around the moon must be made in two phases a rocket ship taking off from the Earth's surface will use almost all the fuel it can carry just to attain a speed great enough to balance the pull of gravity unpowered it will then keep circling the earth in an orbit outside of the atmosphere the the first phase however if we can refuel the ship in this orbit with fuel brought up by cargo rocket ships it can set out on the second phase the trip around the moon and back this televised primetime event may dr. Wernher von Braun a household name as 40 million Americans we're glued to their screens von Browns plan absolutely worked as things began to get moving in Washington that would later help him get the funding he needed for his rockets he's president today approved plans by this country of going forward for the launching of a small unmanned integrin satellite in the region beyond what did we learn today guys when someone tells you not to follow your dreams don't just accept it it might very well happen if you keep at it so anyway back in the Soviet Union Sergei Korolev was also watching how things were developing in America anxious to get his own satellite into orbit first he works furiously on his r7 rocket Nikita Khrushchev the leader of the Soviet Union told Korra left that if the r7 worked and he would be allowed to fit the next launch with a satellite after several failures the r7 was finally able to launch successfully on August 21st 1957 and traveled 3,700 miles going further than any rocket before and capable of hitting America Sergei Korolev can now proceed with his satellite which they called Sputnik now the satellite itself was very simple in design it was just a relatively small ball about 22 and a half inches in diameter with for long radio antennae it was stripped down to only the bare essentials in orders make it light enough to be carried by the r7 all it needed to do was to transmit a radio signal proving to the world of its success on the 4th of October 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 the first man-made satellite into orbit and the world took notice today a new moon is in the sky a 23 inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket an artist's conception of how the feat was accomplished a three-stage rocket number one the booster in the class of an intercontinental missile its weight estimated at 50 tons the smaller second stage took over at five thousand miles an hour and carried on to the highest point reached five hundred miles up the artificial moon is boosted to a speed counter balancing the pull of gravity and released you are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the earth circling satellite one of the great scientific feats of the age this was it this was the moment that officially started the space race it was the kick up the proverbial backside America needed to get them in the game its public was awash with different emotions some of them were excited with this scientific breakthrough while others were even frightened gets the American people alarmed at a foreign country especially an enemy country can do this if we fear this but more than fear more than excitement the biggest thing Sputnik did was sting America's pride and they couldn't let that slide however whilst America was rushing in with her own satellite the Russians were already thinking one step ahead on November 3rd 1957 Sputnik 2 was launched but this was no mere satellite on board a carried a dog called Lika the first living creature in space the purpose of the experiment was to see if an animal or eventually a human could survive the stress of leaving Earth's atmosphere it was a complete success although rather sadly Lika only survived for five hours in Earth's orbit it was succumbing to heat exhaustion many people were outraged that the Soviets didn't even attempt to come up with a way to bring her back down beforehand regardless it was clear to everyone that the Cold War would not only take place on earth but in outer space and four years Wernher von Braun had been fighting to make his voice heard in the military but bureaucracy and politics had always stood in his way now that the Russians were in space they were starting to pay attention he would get his chance to go ahead with launching his satellite but he had to wait for some stupid reason for the Navy to have first dibs the Vanguard TV 3 was America's first attempt to launch a satellite on December 6th 1957 and as you can see here at fail spectacular because the Navy was sloppy and they rushed it the Americans hoping to have a little bit of their pride restored instead became a laughingstock to the Soviet Union premier Khrushchev hit them with a sick burn saying the United States sleeps under a Soviet moon so since the Navy cocked up their chance Wernher von Braun finally got the go-ahead on the 31st of January 1958 Explorer 1 was launched without incident and like Sputnik this American satellite would collect scientific data from space the success of Explorer 1 cannot be understated as a loud von Braun to have all the funding he would need on July 29th 1958 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration would be formed NASA would take the charge in winning the space race for America and less than a year later they announced Project Mercury at a press conference introducing a plan to put the first American into space meanwhile the Soviets were still making headline news by sending probes to the moon as part of their lunar program on October 7th 1959 one of these probes called Luna 3 sent back photographs and for the first time in history humans can now see what the dark side of the moon looks like but this was still more of a sideshow as the Soviets were also planning to put a man into space after an intensive training program the man who would be chosen for this was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on the 12th of April 1961 the Vostok 1 rocket was launched carrying yuri 17,500 miles an hour each step of the way another booster rocket would drop off as he went higher and higher and higher the g-force pressing up against his body until the final rocket stage shut down and Vostok one reached orbit and like flicking a switch the g-force was gone I was replaced with weightlessness and then Yuri looked out the window of his capsule and became the first human being to ever see the Earth from space [Music] after just over an hour in orbit the Vostok re-entered Earth's atmosphere and as the first man to orbit the Earth Yuri Gagarin received a hero's welcome winning many medals and titles including being awarded by premier khrushchev hero of the Soviet Union which was the highest honor of the nation he also became an international celebrity as he traveled all over the globe doing interviews about his historic venture promoting the Soviet Union superiority in space to the Americans however it was another crushing blow to the national pride and despite their own great accomplishment of putting Alan Shepard the first American into space less than a month later it still wasn't enough NASA always seemed to be just one step behind the Soviets and John F Kennedy the American president decided that being in second place just wasn't going to cut it anymore instead of trying to catch up to the Soviets he would shift NASA's attention to focus on the end goal in one of the greatest speeches of all time he publicly announced that America would have put a man on the moon before the end of the decade but why some say the moon why choose this as our goal and they may we'll ask why climb the highest mountain why 35 years ago fly the Atlantic why does Rice play Texas we choose to go to the moon we choose to go to the moon we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win good god I love that man now that was a president whatever his real political motivations may have been supporting all of this it can't be denied that his passion and perseverance to get the American people and Congress behind NASA changed everything they got better funding better resources and the Apollo program was started shortly afterwards with the gold put Americans on the moon this was the tipping point where things would begin to turn in America's favor it's just such a shame he didn't live to see it unfortunately for Sergei Korolev he would get nowhere near the same kind of support from his government for his planned mission to the moon he was mostly expected to just work with what he had and most of the technology wasn't as advanced as what the Americans had even after completing yet another historic achievement by having Alexei Leonov be the first man to spacewalk outside his capsule on the 18th of March 1965 the real reason why is because the Soviet Union just saw the space race is yet another propaganda tool and they weren't terribly interested in its scientific advancements the funding he was given instead was just a fraction of what he really needed over the coming months NASA was sending more and more manned missions into space performing space walks of their own and doing docking procedures all of the necessary steps to prepare for their trip to the moon at last the Americans were beginning to overtake the Soviets but the worst blow to the Soviet space program came on the 14th of January 1966 when tragically Sergei Korolev died this was brought about from a kidney disorder he had picked up during his time in the gulag and his health had been deteriorating due to the stress of his space missions the doctors had previously warned him about their when he had his first heart attack in 1962 back down from his work otherwise they couldn't guarantee that he would live much longer but Sergei persevere despite this risk bearing that Khrushchev would cancel the Soviet space program altogether such was his commitment to space exploration sad to say but Korolev's death worked in NASA's favor von Browns only true rival was now out of the picture and they no longer had to truly concern themselves with the Soviets catching up and then on December 21st 1968 just over a hundred years after Jules Verne published his book from the earth to the moon NASA launched Apollo 8 onboard with 3 astronauts William Anders Frank Borman and Jim Lovell this time they were leaving Earth and flying straight to the moon traveling 234,000 miles going further than any human being had ever gone before their six-day mission would be to orbit the moon and return safely entering its orbit they became the first human beings to ever look down on the lunar surface with the naked eye but even more incredible was that as they made their way around its dark side William Anders grabbed a camera and recorded a truly spectacular sight the earth rising over the moon's horizon two more missions would follow and still the Soviets were nowhere close to catching up with a manned mission of their own and then a year later the day finally came on July 16 1969 the world held its breath as Apollo 11 was launched carrying Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon this was the mission the mission that would achieve Wernher von Braun long dream a fulfill a promise made by NASA and John F Kennedy to land men on the moon before the end of the decade four days later Apollo 11 enter the moon's orbit as Michael Collins stayed behind in the command module Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended down to the surface on the lunar module back on earth half a billion people were watching every step of the way marking it as one of the biggest televised events in history Neil Armstrong opened the hatch and began making his way down the ladder then he said those immortal words ll support women at one small step for man one giant leap for me [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Music] true to his words john f kennedy's proposal to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of the decade had finally been achieved however nasa wasn't quite done yet and would continue with further missions after Apollo 11 came Apollo 12 another successful moon landing a took place on November 24 1969 now originally NASA had a budget for ten moon landings but despite how successful Apollo 11 was there are politicians pressuring them to cut costs people in my state have been asking why we're continuing to fund this program now that we've beaten Russians to the moon as a result of people like this by the time Apollo 13 was scheduled to launch on April 11th 1970 the 10 moon landings were to be cut down to nine and it's aftermath would cut down even more and this is obviously where the movie begins the crew selected for Apollo 13 was Fred Haise the lunar module pilot played by Bill Paxton Ken Mattingly the command module pilot played by Gary Sinise and finally Jim Lovell the commander played by Tom Hanks now a cool thing to note about Jim Lovell is that by this point he was the world's most traveled astronaut with 572 hours of spaceflight with three missions under his belt including Apollo 8 the first manned mission to orbit the moon now he would get the opportunity to land on it however just a few days before the mission launch the first bit of bad luck came when Ken Mattingly was exposed to German measles as a precaution as replaced him with the backup command module pilot Jack Swagger's played by Kevin Bacon now some people use this last-minute replacement as yet another example of the superstitious bad luck looming over the mission all just because it was the thirteenth Apollo mission and 13 is seen as an unlucky number I'm glad to see that the movie accurately points out that the folks over at NASA aren't exactly a superstitious Bunch I'm gonna walk on the moon Marilyn I know that's really it's 13 or 13 you comes after 12 huh by the way I'm happy to say that Maryland's initial nervousness about the mission and is having bad luck because of the number thirteen is authentically depicted in the movie even more so when it's reinforced by this little moment with Maryland's wedding ring that really did take place a day before the launch I was taking a shower and I it just slipped right off my hand and it went into the drain and I just was terrified because to me it was like an omen that something really was going to happen now I'm not exactly a superstitious guy but I do think it's kind of funny how NASA was almost tempting fate and that's because Apollo 13 was scheduled to launch on April 11th 1970 at 13 past 1:00 or in military lingo 13 13 the reason for this was simply just because the timing presented the most optimal conditions that day NASA was treating it like any other mission and aside from a bumpy start with one of the engines had liftoff that was quickly corrected everything was above board and just routine it's nothing routine about flying to the moon I came back for that I totally agree with you Mon unfortunately the public at the time didn't see it that way the thing is by Apollo 13 people were so used to NASA landing men on the moon that they were just bored by it apparently they found it so boring the no news network wanted to show Apollo 13s live TV broadcast all the network's dumped us well him so we made go to the moon about as exciting as taking a trip to Pittsburgh now I understand that the Beatles broke up the day before and yes there was headline news but seriously how lame is that I can't help but feel a little annoyed with how good everyone had it back then and it's sad to think that arguably the most memorable thing that NASA has done since the Apollo program is this control to Major Tom we made the anyway about six minutes after their live TV broadcast which nobody watched Mission Control asked Jack Swagger's to stir the hydrogen and oxygen tanks in the service module hey we've got a problem here what did you do nothing I stirred the techs what's the crew of Apollo 13 a Mission Control didn't know at the time was that the insulation covering the wires inside oxygen tank number two had accidentally melted off during a dress rehearsal a few weeks before so when Jack Swagger's lit the switch a spark from an exposed wire caused the fire and ignited the highly concentrated oxygen tanks back in Mission Control the readings on their computers were going off the chart when they received that famous radio message houston we have a problem now that famous line was actually shortened in the movie what was actually said was with all the confusion Mission Control thought the problem had to be instrumental since so many things were going wrong at once was the Apollo 13 crew thought they had been hit by meteor this was just for the first few minutes until Jim Lovell looked out the window we are venting something out in the space this was extremely bad the oxygen supply wasn't just used for breathing it was also mixed with the hydrogen in the fuel cells to generate water and power one tank was completely depleted and the second was bleeding oxygen very quickly in order to hold the flow Houston decided that the reactant feed valves from the two fuel cells had to be closed and when they gave the order to Apollo 13 it crushed them because it could only mean one thing we just lost the moon the reason why was because once they had shut down those valves they couldn't be turned back on again they also knew that they needed to fuel cells to land on the moon what little oxygen they had left was in the command module small reserve tank but the real problem wasn't that they could no longer land on the moon but if they can make it back home alive the command module by this point it would be out of oxygen and power within minutes to conserve as much as they could for reentry in Earth's atmosphere they had to shut it down and move themselves into lunar module or LEM and use it as a lifeboat but before they could do that they had to transfer vital data from the command modules computers onto the Lambs computers now the good thing about the lemmas that had its own supply of power and oxygen just in the nick of time the crew achieved everything they needed to do and moved into the LEM whilst all this was going on Apollo 13 mission was finally making headline news people all around the world watched as reports came in of how perilous the situation was there was a very real possibility that Lovell hastened Swaggart would make another record for the history books to be the first Americans to die in space but the crew didn't have the luxury all the time to contemplate their odds after they corrected their course they had to focus on the next problem with extremely limited power how could they return to Earth the only engine we've got with enough power for a direct report is the SPS on a service module what Lowell has told us could have been damaged in an explosion so let's consider that engine dead we like that thing up cabal the whole works just too risky so what was decided instead was to have Apollo 13 continued to the moon there they would use the moon's gravity to pull them into orbit and with a brief engine burn from the LEM it would slingshot them back to earth but there was also another issue Mission Control knew that without being able to use the engine from the service module Apollo 13 to Ernie back would take much longer the thing is the LEM was built to land on the moon but was designed to only support two men for two days and based on their close proximity to the moon already the lems week engine burn would instead take them four days to return to Earth meaning the very real possibility that they could run out of water power and ere long before they've reached it as Apollo 13 approached the moon's orbit the film appropriately shows this very somber scene when the astronauts look at the moon out the window their treadmill attacks you and buzzes all neighborhood coming up on Mount marathon Jim you got to take a look at this I've seen it I honestly can't even begin to imagine how gut-wrenching that must be to be that close to the moon closer than most people have ever been only to see it slip away as Apollo 13 reappeared from the far side of the Moon the crew fired the lens engine directing them to earth and then afterwards to conserve all the power they possibly could for life support communication and later for re-entry Houston told him to switch off all non-critical systems including the heating eventually got so cold in there that it was like being in a fridge the duration of their journey back to earth would be an extreme discomfort as it would be too cold to sleep and their food and water would freeze but to ensure their survival they had to do it with power consumption taking care of the next problem that had to be fixed was how to deal with the carbon dioxide building up in the spacecraft now normally they would use lithium hydroxide canisters which filter carbon dioxide to make the air breathable and they did have plenty on board from both the command module and the lunar module but there was a serious design flaw we got to co2 filter problem on the lunar module five filters on the limb which were meant for two guys for a day and a half so I told the doctor they're already up to 8 on the gauges anything over 15 and you get paired judgment blackouts the beginnings of brain asphyxia without the scrubbers in the command module they take square cartridges ones on the limb around so the engineers back on earth using nothing with equipment available on Apollo 13 had to figure out how to fit a square peg into a round hole amazingly a solution was found with duct tape part of a flight manual and some plastic bags they were able to direct the astronauts over the radio on how to recreate the process for the next few days Apollo 13 drifted onwards to earth as its crew struggled with freezing conditions lack of sleep and dehydration on the sixth day earth was finally beginning to fill their windows in preparation for this Houston told them a new course correction was needed as the angle they were approaching was too shallow meaning that they would skim the Earth's atmosphere and bounce off into space unfortunately they still couldn't power up their computers yet to give them a reading so they would have to fly blind and use a visual reference the Stars can be counted on as there was still a lot of debris floating outside so instead they used the earth itself keeping it in the window the whole crew had to work together by firing the lens engine for the precise duration needed as they flew manually they only had a matter of seconds to study the spacecraft as it pitched and you're from the force of the engine more come on better hold em alive damn it teddy I shut down just in the nick of time they had achieved the correct angle they needed the next and final step was to prepare for re-entry both Mission Control and the crew had been anticipating this nervously the command module had never been powered down before in flight and whether being exposed to the cold vacuum of space for so long the main concern was whether it could even be turned back on and then there was also the issue about the build-up of condensation everything inside was absolutely covered with droplets of water from the walls the floors the ceiling and the control panels and there was a very good chance that condensation was building up behind the control panels to the possibility of a short-circuit wasn't far from everyone's mind fortunately all the systems were switched on without incident and the spacecraft came to life next they disconnected the service module and as it drifted off the crew could now see where the damage had been from the explosion one whole side of the spacecraft missing right by the high-gain antenna whole panel was blown out right up right up to our hate-filled reason why everyone was so concerned was that if the heat shield had been at all compromised then the astronauts would most likely burn up in Earth's atmosphere but there was nothing they could do about it only a few hours left until reentry all they could do now was hope for the best with everything ready to go the crew moved into the command module and disconnected the LEM the portion of the ship that had protected them for so long throughout the entire ordeal the command module then began to descend into the atmosphere the whole world held its breath has had watched everything unfold on the news hoping and praying that the angle was still good that the heat shield hadn't been damaged and the parachutes hadn't frozen in space the time will take for Mission Control to know if Apollo 13 had made it was calculated to be around 3 minutes reason why is because communications are temporarily disrupted in reentry within that time frame due to the extreme buildup of heat and the ionization of the gases around the spacecraft the command module rose to temperatures of 5000 degrees as it hurled towards the Earth going 25,000 miles an hour 3 minutes went by and still not a word ii began to drag as the blackout continued and then after six minutes a voice emerge from the radio against all odds the crew of Apollo 13 returned safely the heat shield withstood the intense heat of reentry and the parachutes had successfully deployed the extra delay in the blackout was caught by the command module coming in at a shallower angle but otherwise they had made it they splashed down the South Pacific Ocean where the USS iwo jima was waiting for them with a rescue crew all over the world people let out a huge sigh of relief as they watched the live TV broadcast later Apollo 13 mission would be called a successful failure Jim Lovell Fred Hayes and Jack Swagger's may have been denied their chance to walk on the moon but the return home is nonetheless a true victory made possible by the extraordinary professionalism and dedication by Mission Control and each other as you all know I'm not exactly fond of inaccuracies almost every historical movie has them but most of them are justified to enhance the drama within the story sometimes it's just an excuse to cover up sloppy writing but Apollo 13 is a rare example where I happen to agree with mostly in activities presented on screen but don't get me wrong these moments are far and few between they really did do a fantastic job to try and be as faithful to the real-life story as possible but only to an extent you see if they made this particular movie to be too authentic then it really would have been boring to watch in Apollo 13s case the movie not only has to be authentic but has to convey to the audience what is going on in the simplest way possible obviously we can't understand every single thing said in the movie since we are clearly not astronauts I can't even pretend to understand the complexity of half the stuff they're talking about that's why throughout the film some of their high tech jargon is simplified but even that sometimes is not enough because as human beings what we tend to respond to most are visuals this is the reason why the film feels like it has to almost spell things out for us so you're telling me you can only give our guys 45 hours that brings them to about there we gotta find a way to make this fit into the hole for this using nothing but that in all honesty I imagine that most these guys were completely up to speed with one another and most likely talking a mile a minute but as long as we the audience gets a generally good idea of what's going on then it's absolutely justified in my opinion another thing is if we can't understand the gravity of the situation behind what's being said we can certainly pick it up by the emotions our main characters convey all I did was stir those tanks was that gauge reading before he hit the switch you don't tell me how to fly the damn sea am i right do a job ask me to stir the damn tanks and I stir the tank now just to let you know this confrontation absolutely never happened in fact there were no confrontations of any kind that took place on Apollo 13 despite the discomforts and the dangers they had to endure cooperation between the crew members was never an issue they were all in this together and focusing on anything else was just a waste of time we're not gonna go bouncing off the walls for 10 minutes and we're just gonna end up right back here with the same problems trying to figure out how to stay alive this possible suggestion of Jack Swagger being incompetent is totally fabricators in the movie I mean like how in the hell was he supposed to know that the oxygen tank was gonna explode just by flipping a switch if there was even a slight chance that he wasn't up to the task do you really think he would even be in outer space to begin with these emotional outbursts that occur throughout the film obviously didn't happen but they're meant to heighten the drama and to emphasize the stress and the toll it was having on these astronauts therefore using coal they've had no sleep and they're suffering for the throbbing headaches because of their lack of oxygen any one of us would quite naturally be bitching and moaning but the fact that these guys never did really does emphasize how they were the best of the best however in the movie we see people frequently snap at each other whether it be on board Apollo 13 or even back in Houston they're working on it now all over the simulator and get an ST got down I don't want another estimate I want the procedures now this is actually where history works against the movie because not once did Gene Kranz ever snap has any of his crew nor does any of the astronauts snap at Houston queries watch that middle gimbal we don't want you coming off its banks Allen Funt here's I'm well aware the goddamn gimbal if you actually listen to the real audio from Apollo 13 and compare it to what is portrayed in the movie then you will be amazed to discover how absolutely calm the real guys were even during the most intense scene in the entire movie houston we have a problem we have a main bus b undervolt we've got a lot of thrust arrested over Houston now just went offline oh there's another master alarm Houston are you mad about ain't Bieber thunderbolt rather main b undervolt stand by a 13 we're looking at it I'm checking the GWACs there was no refreshed baby chick was we've got a computer restoring configure the RCS we've got a Grady's live fire zone baby we got multiple caution warning Houston okay right now are you sent me voltages up looking good though we had a pretty large bang go visit with the caution warning now we have three large bang near sushi with a master alarm since late last night Jesus like the heart rates are skyrocketing and I'm here with her I will go ahead but up the tunnel again yeah now I swear that I didn't just look for the most boring clips I could find this is pretty much good sister with all their rushes although it doesn't sound like this very much going on they're actually performing some very nail-biting stuff the fact that Mission Control and the crew of Apollo 13 were able to keep their cool that the entire ordeal is nothing short of astonishing but I think it's fair to say that if Apollo 13 is 100% accurate with how these guys actually talked then most audience members would fall asleep instead the authenticity comes from the event scene in the movie and especially the visuals for example to get the actors to have cold breath they would freeze the set to about 35 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.6 degrees Celsius there's also the re-entry sequence which I absolutely love when the command module began to heat up all the condensation dripped away the real Jim Lovell described it by saying that it rained inside the CM and in the movie we actually see it but the most authentic part of Apollo 13 without a doubt are the zero gravity sequences and the reason why they're so convincing is because they're real during production NASA allowed the filmmakers special use of their reduced gravity aircraft the kc-135 on board the plane they had built smaller versions of the set for the actors to work in and as the plane descended sharply the cast and the crew were able to experience nearly 25 seconds of weightlessness when you're weightless it feels like you've just been spun upside down all blood goes into your head and it feels like like giving you a rock oh plane at the amusement park it just feels like they you just got spun upside down you think suddenly like these you think hey I'm upside down no I'm not what's wrong why is it different oh I'm floating seriously how awesome is that now let's discuss some of the inaccuracies one big moment in the film is when the astronauts climb into the lunar module and use it as a lifeboat whilst the guys back in Houston racked their brains on how to make it support three men for four days instead of what it was designed to do which was two men for two days now whilst all this is true the movie does make it appear that Mission Control improvised a lot of the stuff on the fly in reality NASA had already stimulated this lifeboat procedure before in that scenario they pretended that something had contaminated the atmosphere in the command module and the crew had to get into the LEM and vent everything out so during the Apollo 13 mission people already remember that exercise when everything was going badly in fact it's probably because of that these astronauts survived there was also another similar example in the film when the problem came with the carbon dioxide filters from the command module and the LEM in preparation for the Apollo 8 mission there had been another simulation where a cabin fan had been jams due to a loose screw to fix the problem they used a vacuum cleaner from the command module and some cuts of plastic bags and taped it to the lithium hydroxide canisters and blew through it with a vacuum cleaner so again during the Apollo 13 mission people were like hey do you remember that simulation we did back on eight and then of course there's the big moments in the film where it seems that Ken Mattingly single-handedly saves the day by figuring out how to find more power for the command module when this crew on 30 need to turn everything on in reality that simulation was more of a verification of an already written process a bunch of guys had already worked it out and written down the procedures to do it so the simulation was actually done to confirm whether the numbers were right knowing the truth of course shouldn't take away your enjoyment of the movie as I feel that was necessary to condense a lot of what happened I mean you have to remember that these guys were out in space for several days and the last big inaccuracy in the movie that I can think of is when we see the crew begin to suffer the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning we see Jack Swagger's have blurry vision and he's having trouble thinking that whilst it's true that there was a buildup of co2 inside the spacecraft before they fix the filters it was never as dangerously high as the thumb suggests otherwise the astronauts would have been unable to carry out their complicated tasks you see when you get co2 poisoning your brain is starved of oxygen and the less you have the more incapacitated you become before you eventually die from it this is just another example of the film heightening up the drama to inform the audience with its visuals the dangers out Astrid face as a historical film Apollo 13 is damn near perfect to this execution it stays as true to real-life events as it possibly can and by doing so is able to shine the light on the incredible deeds carried out by Apollo 13 and mission control it is indeed a tribute to this amazing period of time and mostly inaccuracies are presented in this review of in my opinion justified in the movie people may not have shouted each other they may not have been really from the effects of co2 but the stresses and the dangers they faced were very real indeed and the fact that we're able to stay calm and collected throughout the entire ordeal speaks volumes about their professionalism and you can clearly see the effort made in making this film you get a sense of a genuine enthusiasm and a great love of history so much so that literally bleeds out of the screen and this is all I want from a historical picture I just want the filmmakers to care as much about the history as I do because when they do you get a real classic on your hands people will watch it and understand why Apollo 13 is referenced as NASA's finest hour a lot of Americans who watch this film and they'll feel proud not just of Apollo 13 but what their country accomplished for all of mankind in the space race as rightfully they should I also feel that sense of pride for them but I also feel a tinge of regret it's sad to think that humanity's greatest achievement landing on the moon was nearly 50 years ago half a century 2001 has come and gone and although we have iPads and we have Skype we're still no closer to Stanley Kubrick's vision of the future a film he made before Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon he made it in a time when people were optimistic about what the next century would bring in interplanetary travel we still have yet to see that future the last time humanity was on another celestial body was on the moon in 1972 and I sincerely hope that within our lifetime we might return to it again something well that about wraps it up my name is Nick Hodges and thanks for watching history buffs and remember if you like the show help the channel grow if you wish to support history buffs you can now do so at patreon and as always let me know in the comment section what you thought about Apollo 13 and of course what historical movie should I review next in the meantime check out the history bus Twitter and Facebook pages for new updates until then I'll see you next time you you you

Info

Channel: History Buffs

Views: 1,962,477

Rating: 4.9061413 out of 5

Keywords: Apollo 13, History Buffs, NASA, Jim Lovell, Moon Landing, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert, Historical accuracy, Historically Accurate, Historically Innacurate, Neil Armstrong, Space Race, Race to Space, The Moon, Sergei Korolev, Werner Von Braun

Id: zjCOMJDULaE

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 52min 29sec (3149 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 19 2016

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