It's such a scary time right now, I search for things to lift my mood. I watched apollo 13 earlier today, and there are a couple of scenes in the movie that have reminded me how incredible we are as a species and why there is still hope that science will come through with a vaccine or something. I was extremely luck and got to attend school at a magnet program which sent me to take classes at Johnson Space Center which actually coincided with them filming Apollo 13. We learned all sorts of behind the scenes stories that make it all seem so incredible.
Two scenes in particular:
This is one of the most mind blowing feats of human ability in history, IMO. To give a quick recap of what's going on, the apollo 13 has basically exploded in space, and is leaking fuel. They are tumbling around in space, doing flips, before they get it re-stabilized. They need to turn off all their computers in order to survive reentry and conserve for one major controlled burn to boost the back to earth. But one problem, the tumbling of the ship has confused their orientation, they don't know which way in space they are pointing. They need to boost later in their mission to reach earth, but without knowing which way they are facing, they can't make any calculations to know how long to boost for. If they can't figure out their orientation, when they boost, they will sling off into space and be lost forever.
The solution is to re-calculate orientation using the gimble, which requires power. But they need to shut the power off immediately, so they only get ONE chance to get the reading correct. Quite literally everything forward in the entire rescue relies on getting the calculation of their orientation correctly. They have not only one chance to get it right, they have to do so extremely quickly.
I do math related to 3D rotations all the time owing to my work in computer graphics. Orientation and gimblelock are extremely complex problems, this is very hard math. To avoid gimblelock, they work with quaternions, 4th dimensional rotations. Even among computer graphics engineers, quaternion math is difficult, most people just let their calculators handle it. They didn't have calculators in those days. They had scientists.
So Jim Lovell relays to NASA that he's under too much distress and can't calculate the rotation correctly, he begs them to help. And NASA turns to this team of rockstar engineers to get the job done. With paper, pencil, and slide rulers, a team calculates the rotation in seconds, each independently verifying each other. They do so quickly enough to buy just enough time to have enough power for reentry and the controlled burn.
The other scene:
after getting everything stable in ship, the team runs into a new problem. The craft wasn't built to filter CO2 for this many people for this long. They have taken refuge in the lunar lander, which was only meant for two people. They are poisoning themselves with their breaths. And the CO2 cartridges for the lunar lander and the apollo craft are incompatible, literally a square peg in a round hole situation.
The movie plays this up a bit more dramatically, saying a team of scientists figured it out in a meeting, but the actual way it happened is even more amazing if not less film-friendly. The person behind the lunar lander design was called in on an emergency, and during his drive to dallas, invented the entire process in his head, on the fly. It wasn't a team that did it, it was one man under extreme pressure. Not only did he come up with the design, he also helped write the manual that had to relay how to build the converter. Keep in mind, they didn't have video, only audio, so he had to figure out how to phrase the process well enough that people could build the device sight unseen.
And here's the good shit: THEY DID IT. They did it all, every time during Apollo 13 that they faced a do-or-die situation, these amazing people came through in the clutch. We're an amazing species, we can do great things when our backs are up against the wall. I see dozens of research institutions right now coming up with open source ventilator designs. I see small inventors at home coming up with adapters that can let 1 ventilator work for 4 people. I see the spirit of invention right now, and it gives me life. I hope these clips bring some comfort to others like they did to me.
Two scenes in particular:
This is one of the most mind blowing feats of human ability in history, IMO. To give a quick recap of what's going on, the apollo 13 has basically exploded in space, and is leaking fuel. They are tumbling around in space, doing flips, before they get it re-stabilized. They need to turn off all their computers in order to survive reentry and conserve for one major controlled burn to boost the back to earth. But one problem, the tumbling of the ship has confused their orientation, they don't know which way in space they are pointing. They need to boost later in their mission to reach earth, but without knowing which way they are facing, they can't make any calculations to know how long to boost for. If they can't figure out their orientation, when they boost, they will sling off into space and be lost forever.
The solution is to re-calculate orientation using the gimble, which requires power. But they need to shut the power off immediately, so they only get ONE chance to get the reading correct. Quite literally everything forward in the entire rescue relies on getting the calculation of their orientation correctly. They have not only one chance to get it right, they have to do so extremely quickly.
I do math related to 3D rotations all the time owing to my work in computer graphics. Orientation and gimblelock are extremely complex problems, this is very hard math. To avoid gimblelock, they work with quaternions, 4th dimensional rotations. Even among computer graphics engineers, quaternion math is difficult, most people just let their calculators handle it. They didn't have calculators in those days. They had scientists.
So Jim Lovell relays to NASA that he's under too much distress and can't calculate the rotation correctly, he begs them to help. And NASA turns to this team of rockstar engineers to get the job done. With paper, pencil, and slide rulers, a team calculates the rotation in seconds, each independently verifying each other. They do so quickly enough to buy just enough time to have enough power for reentry and the controlled burn.
The other scene:
after getting everything stable in ship, the team runs into a new problem. The craft wasn't built to filter CO2 for this many people for this long. They have taken refuge in the lunar lander, which was only meant for two people. They are poisoning themselves with their breaths. And the CO2 cartridges for the lunar lander and the apollo craft are incompatible, literally a square peg in a round hole situation.
The movie plays this up a bit more dramatically, saying a team of scientists figured it out in a meeting, but the actual way it happened is even more amazing if not less film-friendly. The person behind the lunar lander design was called in on an emergency, and during his drive to dallas, invented the entire process in his head, on the fly. It wasn't a team that did it, it was one man under extreme pressure. Not only did he come up with the design, he also helped write the manual that had to relay how to build the converter. Keep in mind, they didn't have video, only audio, so he had to figure out how to phrase the process well enough that people could build the device sight unseen.
And here's the good shit: THEY DID IT. They did it all, every time during Apollo 13 that they faced a do-or-die situation, these amazing people came through in the clutch. We're an amazing species, we can do great things when our backs are up against the wall. I see dozens of research institutions right now coming up with open source ventilator designs. I see small inventors at home coming up with adapters that can let 1 ventilator work for 4 people. I see the spirit of invention right now, and it gives me life. I hope these clips bring some comfort to others like they did to me.
