Apollo 13 facts
While investigating facts about Apollo 13, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Ron Howard stated that, after the first test preview of the film Apollo 13, one of the comment cards indicated "total disdain"; the audience member had written that it was a "typical Hollywood" ending and that the crew would never have survived.
In the novel, Forrest Gump goes to space on a NASA mission. It crash lands on an island where he's stuck for years. These scenes weren't in the movie, but Tom Hanks did go on to star in Apollo 13 and Castaway.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Apollo 13 I managed to collect.
-
Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell had a cameo in the movie Apollo 13. He requested to play the captain of the ship that rescues him, because that was the same rank he held when he retired from the Navy
-
During a critical moment in the Apollo 13 mission the Soviet Union discontinued radio transmissions in the frequency bands used by Apollo to prevent radio interference
-
Reed Hasting started Netflix after receiving $40 in late fees when returning Apollo 13.
-
There is an intact cask of plutonium dioxide on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean because Apollo 13 failed to land on the moon
-
Duct tape has been brought on every NASA mission since the sixties and saved the lives of everyone aboard the Apollo 13
-
After the first test preview of Apollo 13 (a film firmly based on true events) one comment card indicated the film had a typical "Hollywood ending" and that the crew would've never survived in real life.
-
Apollo 13, was filmed on board reduced gravity aircraft to show realistic weightlessness, but along with it's combination of CGI and small scale props it lost "Best Visual Effects" to Babe at the Academy Awards.
-
Spielberg suggested Ron Howard (the director of Apollo 13) to use KC-135 - an airplane that could create 23 seconds of weightlessness for filming certain scenes. Those scenes were filmed in bursts of 25 seconds after flying 612 parabolas, adding up to a total of 3hrs 54mins of weightlessness.
-
Ron Howard directed his first feature film for Roger Corman, famous for squeezing production budgets. Years later on Apollo 13 he cast Corman as a senator who complains about the high cost of moon missions.
-
Ron Howard was so impressed with the zero-G effect of the "vomit comet" while preparing for Apollo 13 that he elected to film many of the weightless scenes in one. As the zero-G effect lasts less than 30 seconds, it took 162 trips to film everything they needed.
Apollo 13 data charts
For your convenience take a look at Apollo 13 figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.
What is true about apollo 13?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
After Lunar Module saved astronauts on Apollo 13 mission, it's company sent a bill for $312,421.24 for towing services (as a joke) to company who made malfunctioned service module, and they in response declined payment stating last 3 times they carried Lunar Module for free.
No special effects were used to achieve zero gravity in the movie "Apollo 13". Through 612 flight parabolic, approximately 4 hours was spent filming on board NASA's "Vomit Comet" The KC-135, an aircraft designed to train astronauts for the weightlessness of space. - source
The Apollo 13 flight, which launched 49 years ago, still holds the spaceflight record marking the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. - source
Netflix's origin story "Reed Hasting came up with the idea for Netflix when he was hit with a $40 late fee on the movie Apollo 13" is BS and just a marketing tool.
Dick Cavett did not realize he was in the movie Apollo 13 until he was at the theater watching it and saw himself. - source
A small town in Kansas has one of the largest space museums in the world, including Liberty Bell 7, the Apollo 13 command module, the Gemini X spacecraft, Vostok and Voshkod spacecraft, an SR-71, Nazi V1 and V2 weapons, and several full-scale launch rockets
Helicopter 66 recovered astronauts from Apollo 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13 giving it the status "one of the most famous, or at least most iconic, helicopters in history".
By the age of 13, legendary jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, won the weekly amateur contest at the Apollo Theater so many times that he was eventually barred from entering.
A capsule of Plutonium-238 currently lays at the bottom of the ocean, lost from the Apollo 13 mission.
In the movie Apollo 13, Jim Lovell's wife Marilyn was seen losing her wedding ring down a shower drain. According to Lovell, this did happen, but she managed to retrieve the ring later.
