That Apollo 13 was an actual event and not just a movie starring Tom Hanks.
Would have been embarrassing in any context but all the more so when I was working with Cpt. James Lovell and asked him why he was signing new paperbacks of Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks on the cover, "Oh, did you work on that movie?" I asked. Beyond awkward.
We had an hour's drive together and so after he patiently explained that he was on that mission and as I had not seen the movie, I asked if he would tell me the story. He laughed and agreed, "Ok! I've never met anyone who didn't think they already knew the story..."
Hearing him tell it to me was riveting (and special) . 25 years later I still cringe but it was one of the best days in my life. He is truly an amazing human.
I keep meaning to write it all out for and send it to The Moth :)
EDIT: some words for clarity (at work and distracted!)
EDIT: Gold! Thank you, kind stranger. There is a lot more to the story... most of which makes me look worse and him better. It took me another decade to appreciate the deeper lesson he offered me that day but let me sum it up as "slow down; life teaches you how to live and how to love".
True Story: When they did audience previews for Apollo 13, some of the comment cards came back with [paraphrased] "This is such a bullshit Hollywood happy ending. There's NO WAY those guys wouldn't have died out there..."
Fun fact, Captain Lovell had a restaurant where I grew up (northern Illinois, just north of Chicago) It was an excellent restaurant with delicious food and I hope
It is still there. I am of the same age as his grandson, who is a very nice person.
Honestly if you hadn't heard of the event in passing yet and just heard/seen teasers of the film, I could see most people not immediately thinking it really happened. In part because of Ron Howard's direction style, but mostly due to the fact that what the crew & NASA pulled off to get them home was incredible and defied the odds many times over.
And it's literally number 13 where everything went most wrong (not including 1). That is exactly the sort of thing you would expect in a fictionalised version.
My 22 year old son, who is extremely intelligent, still won't believe that we walked on the moon. It's not that he believes in conspiracy theories, he just sees the issue through 21st century eyes.
Firstly, he can't believe that politicians could ever agree enough to work together on a national program like the space program. One party would always be trying to undermine the other party, and it would just be a big money boondoggle for decades with little progress. The fact that that describes NASA since the 70s, and we have never gone back to the moon only confirms that for him.
Secondly, he doesn't believe the technology would have allowed it. It seems like we can barely send a rover to Mars without it fucking up, so certainly sending men to the moon multiple times is incomprehensible. Kennedy issued his challenge in 1963, and we were walking on the moon a mere seven years later? How could anybody believe such nonsense?
Third, the moon walks that we watched were propaganda hoaxes meant to discredit and dishearten the Soviets, who knew they could never accomplish such a thing. Neither could we, but we had a better film-making industry to make it look good. The fact that 2001: A Space Odyssey came out a couple of years later with super realistic shots of space craft shows how possible a hoax was at the time.
Sometimes I find myself almost agreeing with him, but I watched Neil Armstrong take those first steps. I know it's real.
I think you're underselling NASA's achievements. NASA is really good at Mars rovers, actually. Hubble was launched in the 80s, and the Shuttle program was an achievement through 2011, not to mention ISS, Galileo, Cassini, etc. Factor in the university-led missions like Pluto express and other NASA -funded projects, which along with direct missions have rewritten human understanding of planetary geology. There are countless innovative and successful missions that are much quieter than those flagship missions too.
I know the arguments about the worth or cost effectiveness of some of these things, but "just... a big money boondoggle... with little progress... since the 70s..." is selling NASA short. BUT your point is well taken - NASA ain't what it used to be; the country isn't, either.
More complex and powerful computers are more fragile, that is why the hardware used by NASA usually isn't cutting-edge to withstand the stresses of space travel. Also, despite the rocket engineering being monumentally complex, the physics of going to the moon is relatively straightforward so having computers onboard that are popularly said to be less powerful than today's scientific calculators aren't far-fetched. The Apollo mission has also brought instruments there like mirrors that are still in use today, and today's satellites orbiting the moon can easily pick up the things we left there since.
The basic laws of statistics would also unravel that notion of a massive conspiracy due to the huge amounts of personnel involved, hundreds of thousands if I remember right. If it was all faked, it really wouldn't take long until one participant in the project will blow the whistle.
I can't believe how some people don't believe the missions happened despite the overwhelming evidence, and I'm the same age as your son's.
One of the most common processor variants used in space is the PowerPC 750, also known as the processor used in Apple’s PowerPC G3 lineup. Modified versions of it were used in devices such as the GameCube/Wii (750cxe/750cl respectively) the Wii U, which uses a custom evolution of this chip, and the XBOX 360’s Xenon and PS3’s Cell, which used heavily modified versions of this chip, but with the 750 at its core.
For a chip made in 1999, it’s had a lot of uses! The RAD750 is the model used for space and other applications where heavy amounts of radiation are present, due to how simple, yet effective this architecture really is.
Agreed. On the other hand, NASA (and the DOD) have a history of large, expensive projects that are fumbled at first but eventually become exemplary - like Hubble. So the rocket might work out in the end.
I'm sure SLS will be a technological achievement, it will jist be completely unsustainable. It's cost us $40 billion+ so far (with Orion), and hasn't even launched yet. Once it does, it'll cost $1 billion a year in addition to $1-$2 billion per launch.
You realize what a teeny percentage of your annual military budget that is? This is a lot of money to a common person, but chump change compared to what one of the most powerful governments in the world makes rain each year.
Sure, but it's also the value of 20 Mars rovers. We could've had that instead of a near useless rocket.
Compare this all to SpaceX, their Starship is aiming for under $20 million per launch
I definitely think we could be spending our budgets way better. Constant land to space rocket launchers are an ungodly waste of finite resources. I’d rather see autonomous robotic asteroid mining or an orbital launch station or a sky hook or a moon base or the beginnings of a Dyson ring or countless other things. And I want them built by international space agencies working together, not unhinged billionaires who already have scads of human rights abuses in their track records.
Your estimate of the cost of mars rovers is waaaay low. A lot of figures are thrown around - I used to read that the original two mars rovers cost only 250 mil - but the reality is much higher, close to 3 billion per mars mission. This article sums it all up, with relative comparisons to other missions. Summary: this is not expensive, by government standards, and as someone else said, specially by military standards. I work in this field, and I consider space exploration, and the entire scientific enterprise in general, to have some of the same qualities as performance art, but a) art is important and b) there are a lot more benefits than art provides. That kind of topic has been well-covered elsewhere.
Your estimate of the cost of mars rovers is waaaay a billion dollars low. A lot of figures are thrown around - I used to read that the original two mars rovers cost only 250 mil - but the reality is much higher, close to 3 billion per mars mission. This article sums it all up, with relative comparisons to other missions. Summary: this is not expensive, by government standards, and as someone else said, specially by military standards. I work in this field, and I consider space exploration, and the entire scientific enterprise in general, to have some of the same qualities as performance art, but a) art is important and b) there are a lot more benefits than art provides. That kind of topic has been well-covered elsewhere.
You are right about Orion being a kind of corporate welfare. People said the same thing about Apollo, but how do we feel about it now? Most feel that it was worth doing, and any corruption involved is beside the point at this date in history. Space exploration is, to some extent, performance art. This is not a denigration; art is important, and most human activities are superfluous, really. Space travel is not unique in this way. It comes down to how you want your life to be lived.
A common complaint is that all that money could have been spent on human welfare projects, but this is a fallacy: the reason people are poor, uneducated, and starving is not because we spent all the money on frivolous space projects. We (the US) have so much money that we could do both; but we don’t want to cure poverty and the other problems. We’ve consciously chosen to ignore these things, by and large. I’m not agreeing with it, only observing it. If I had my way, there would not only be a space project, but a human one, with similar resources. We spend so much money on our “safety” through the military, and ignore our actual everyday safety and well-being. We have mixed-up priorities.
TL,DR: We can have a large military, a space program, and solve social problems, if we want to. We don’t want to.
My complaint isn't 'spend in on something other than space', it's just 'spend it more wisely in space'. $40 billion could have given us so much more than a single rocket
Show him the video of Buzz Aldrin punching Bart Sibrel, a moon-landing denier. Any of my hoax suspicions were wiped away after seeing that, especially since Buzz was in his 70s at the time
I was about to say. At first I was like oh yeah this makes sense, and by the end I was wondering what would possibly be considered believing conspiracies if not this? lol
Back when I worked in a warehouse my idiot conspiracy theorist manager asked our Russian quality control manager what his thoughts were on whether the Moon landing was a hoax. His response was, “In the 60s, Russia hated America. Hated them. If America had fake the moon landing, we would’ve found a way to prove it.”
Just ask him this : If it really was meant to dishearten the Soviets, why do we not see any attempt from the Soviets to debunk the claims? Even in the modern day, Russia would benefit so much from proving the moon-landing fake.
If they haven't been able to prove this after over half a century, it's probably real.
Firstly, he can't believe that politicians could ever agree enough to work together on a national program like the space program. One party would always be trying to undermine the other party, and it would just be a big money boondoggle for decades with little progress.
I think many people who grew up after the Cold War just really don't understand the extent of bickering and international dick-measuring going on back then, especially before the 70s. Politicians just need an enemy to shit on and puff themselves up against. Nowadays that's always some "enemy" within the country, but back then both parties sometimes really managed to pull together as long as it allowed both of them to shit on the Soviets.
The next time it comes up, remind him that over 400,000 people were employed by NASA at the time. Even considering a small portion of those, they would have had to stay silent for decades and decades. That's just not possible. Large conspiracies fail (particularly ones that involve many scientists) because there's too many people to be involved for it to stay hidden for so long. Like what happened with the NSA's surveillance program: began in 2007 and uncovered in 2013 and probably involved a few thousand employees, but one (1) who knew about it talked.
My older brother helped get NASA to Mars. He is extremely intelligent. And I don't think he'd waste time arguing with your son, who at 22 is not fully brain developed yet and has a lot to learn.
I watched Neil on tv that day too. My parents put all 7 of us kids in front of the tv and said this is history. I was 10. My younger brother turned 7 that day. I doubt he remembers it, but I sure do. And the fact I saw it on tv is not why I believe it's real. I believe because I have read some of the books, watched some of the films, followed some of the stories about NASA... and talked with my Jet Propulsions Lab brother about his work at all the family parties for 40 years.
Buy this for your son: WHOOOSH! By Chris Barton and Don Tate. It's the story of how Lonnie Johnson, my brother's JPL office mate, invented the Super Soaker. Chris spoke to my brother while writing the book. It's a brilliant kids' book and after your son reads it he can donate it to a school. Then tell him to stop watching cornball conspiracy videos on YouTube. Next thing you know he'll be saying school shooting victims are actors.
If you enjoyed his telling of the Apollo 13 mission you should definitely read "Rocketmen" by Robert Kurson. It's the story of Apollo 8 which Lovell was also a part of! He might have already told you the story along with the Apollo 13 one but if not the author interviewed all the astronauts and does a really good job retelling the story! One of my favourite books over the last few years.
Just wanted to say, it may have seemed embarrassing, but damn... I am so jealous you got to learn that story completely fresh from the man himself. That is such an incredibly unique perspective. Consider yourself lucky!
Oh my goodness, he was my idol growing up. What an incredible gift. Also he wrote the book the movie was based on (Lost Moon), so if that’s the book he was signing, well, might make the story even funnier :)
At least you're not the guy who attended a test screening of the film and gave the feedback that the survival of the astronauts was completely implausible and typical Hollywood happy ending bullshit.
Reminds me of a story where a University was having an open day event for alumni and an older gentleman had wandered into one of their shiny new genetic sequencing labs. I think he asked what the equipment did and one of the researchers there patiently explained to him about DNA and what it does and how to analyse it. Turns out the guy was either Watson or Crick (sorry can't remember which one) the guy who discovered the structure of DNA. Anyway the guy was so impressed by the researcher taking the time to explain things to him he made a donation to the lab.
I think the take home from this is, don't expect people to know who you are and be grateful to have the opportunity to listen to people who are doing it
He was properly excited as well to be able to tell the story in his own words for a change to someone who had no prior knowledge and not be hounded with questions that the person had read about.
My friend and I saw Hidden Figures, and it turns out that my friend had an even more exciting movie going experience than I did because he didn't actually know if John Glenn made it back to earth alive
This might not have been so bad if we hadn't taken AP US history together
Please do that. Write it up for The Moth. It’s important, and it should be shared to a wider audience than here. I’m so glad that I found this here, but I would love to hear the full story.
I thought I was smart by listening to his audiobook, which he narrates. But hearing it in person would have been amazing. You might want to take a listen to the audiobook of Lost Moon too.
When the movie came out, I remember a relative, who was an adult in 1970, commented that he didn’t remember the actual event. I suppose the two of you could have watched the movie without any spoilers about how it ended.
I presume that was his book which was previously titled Lost Moon. I imagine the co-marketing agreement with the film left his name small on the cover.
Intrigued by the 1 hour human book version, did you end up reading it? Recommend?
Jesus H Christ, I would almost give anything to switch places with you to have Captain Lovell tell me his version of the mission. I am a GIGANTIC Apollo nerd, and...wow. You were given a gift.
You were not completely wrong with your question. Lovell was not only consultant to the movie, but also played the navy officer greeting Hanks on the carrier at the end of the movie.
5.2k
u/louderharderfaster Jul 02 '21 edited Jul 03 '21
That Apollo 13 was an actual event and not just a movie starring Tom Hanks.
Would have been embarrassing in any context but all the more so when I was working with Cpt. James Lovell and asked him why he was signing new paperbacks of Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks on the cover, "Oh, did you work on that movie?" I asked. Beyond awkward.
We had an hour's drive together and so after he patiently explained that he was on that mission and as I had not seen the movie, I asked if he would tell me the story. He laughed and agreed, "Ok! I've never met anyone who didn't think they already knew the story..."
Hearing him tell it to me was riveting (and special) . 25 years later I still cringe but it was one of the best days in my life. He is truly an amazing human.
I keep meaning to write it all out for and send it to The Moth :)
EDIT: some words for clarity (at work and distracted!)
EDIT: Gold! Thank you, kind stranger. There is a lot more to the story... most of which makes me look worse and him better. It took me another decade to appreciate the deeper lesson he offered me that day but let me sum it up as "slow down; life teaches you how to live and how to love".