Post by erik on Apr 12, 2015 19:01:00 GMT -5
Quote by Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) in APOLLO 13:
Forty-five years ago this week, the world was reminded of how inherently dangerous manned space travel really was. What had begun as a seemingly routine launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 11, 1970 turned into a nightmare two days later, on the 13th. As Apollo 13 was some 200,000 miles from Earth, and closing in on the Moon, a faulty wire connected to an oxygen tank inside the ship's service module sparked, causing the tank to explode violently, and causing the ship to lose much of its electrical power. Not only was the planned lunar landing aborted, but there were a lot of doubts as to whether the three-man crew of Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise would even be able to return home alive. It was through a combination of the know-how of those three men and the many people at Mission Control that this crisis, still regarded as the most serious one in the history of manned spaceflight, had a triumphant eventuation. In 1995, it became the basis for director Ron Howard's majestic film APOLLO 13.
Based on Lovell's and Jeffrey Kluger's book Lost Moon, APOLLO 13 stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton as the three men who found themselves in severe trouble when that O2 tank blew up in the service module, basically crippling it and, eventually, the command module, forcing the crew to use the lunar excursion module (LEM) as a lifeboat going around the dark side of the Moon. But between that point and splashdown, a lot of things had to be made perfect. The crew had to fire the LEM's engines for course correction without a computer (all power that remained in the ship had to be saved for re-entry); and upon re-entry they would have to hit the atmosphere at a very narrow angle (too steep an angle, they'd be incinerated; too shallow, and they'd bounce off the atmosphere, being permanently marooned). There was also the concern with the heat shield (the explosion had blown out one whole side of the service module, right up to where it connected up with the command module), and even greater concern that the parachutes that slow the ship down for splashdown might not even deploy.
All of these real-life elements are bought to the fore in this movie, proving that, in films based on historical events, it is not the outcome that's important, but what transpires to make it happen. Hanks, of course, is great as Lovell, as are Paxton (as Haise) and Bacon (as Swigert); Ed Harris does a good turn as then-NASA flight director Gene Kranz; and Gary Sinise scores well as Ken Mattingly, the man originally scheduled to be Apollo 13's command module pilot until he was scrubbed two days before the launch because of a measles diagnosis (which turned out to be inaccurate); and Kathleen Quinlan is also good as Marilyn Lovell. The film won two Academy Awards, for Sound and Film Editing; and it remains one of the best films ever made in Hollywood that had its basis in real history, right up there with ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.
"Houston, we have a problem."
Forty-five years ago this week, the world was reminded of how inherently dangerous manned space travel really was. What had begun as a seemingly routine launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 11, 1970 turned into a nightmare two days later, on the 13th. As Apollo 13 was some 200,000 miles from Earth, and closing in on the Moon, a faulty wire connected to an oxygen tank inside the ship's service module sparked, causing the tank to explode violently, and causing the ship to lose much of its electrical power. Not only was the planned lunar landing aborted, but there were a lot of doubts as to whether the three-man crew of Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise would even be able to return home alive. It was through a combination of the know-how of those three men and the many people at Mission Control that this crisis, still regarded as the most serious one in the history of manned spaceflight, had a triumphant eventuation. In 1995, it became the basis for director Ron Howard's majestic film APOLLO 13.
Based on Lovell's and Jeffrey Kluger's book Lost Moon, APOLLO 13 stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton as the three men who found themselves in severe trouble when that O2 tank blew up in the service module, basically crippling it and, eventually, the command module, forcing the crew to use the lunar excursion module (LEM) as a lifeboat going around the dark side of the Moon. But between that point and splashdown, a lot of things had to be made perfect. The crew had to fire the LEM's engines for course correction without a computer (all power that remained in the ship had to be saved for re-entry); and upon re-entry they would have to hit the atmosphere at a very narrow angle (too steep an angle, they'd be incinerated; too shallow, and they'd bounce off the atmosphere, being permanently marooned). There was also the concern with the heat shield (the explosion had blown out one whole side of the service module, right up to where it connected up with the command module), and even greater concern that the parachutes that slow the ship down for splashdown might not even deploy.
All of these real-life elements are bought to the fore in this movie, proving that, in films based on historical events, it is not the outcome that's important, but what transpires to make it happen. Hanks, of course, is great as Lovell, as are Paxton (as Haise) and Bacon (as Swigert); Ed Harris does a good turn as then-NASA flight director Gene Kranz; and Gary Sinise scores well as Ken Mattingly, the man originally scheduled to be Apollo 13's command module pilot until he was scrubbed two days before the launch because of a measles diagnosis (which turned out to be inaccurate); and Kathleen Quinlan is also good as Marilyn Lovell. The film won two Academy Awards, for Sound and Film Editing; and it remains one of the best films ever made in Hollywood that had its basis in real history, right up there with ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.
