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Apollo 13 Movie Was Engineers' "Failure is Not an Option" Moment in the Spotlight – DesignNews

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Image source: Universal Pictures

April 11, 2020 is the 50th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Apollo 13 lunar mission, and this year is also the 25th anniversary of the 1995 film version, directed by Ron Howard. It is this theatrical version of events that is the definitive story of Apollo now for many people, an outcome that was predicted at the time of the movie’s filming by Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott, who served as a consultant on the film.

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“I don’t think anybody’s going to go to the moon for a long time,” Howard recalled Scott telling him. Speaking for the bonus features on the Collector’s Edition DVD, Howard told the story of Scott’s prediction that future moon voyagers would look back at the film as documentation of the Apollo era.

“Everybody involved is going to be dead and all you’re going to have is some of this archival footage and you’ve seen how incomplete that is,” Howard said, speaking for Scott. “But you know what they’re going to be able to do? They’re going to be able to look at this movie, Apollo 13, and say ‘That’s how they went to the moon.’”

The film scored nine Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, with Tom Hanks as Commander Jim Lovell, Kevin Bacon as Backup Lunar Module Pilot Jack Swigert, the late Bill Paxton as Command Module Pilot Fred Haise, Gary Sinise as grounded Prime Lunar Module Pilot Ken Mattingly and Ed Harris as Flight Director Gene Kranz. It won two Academy Awards, for Best Sound and for Film Editing and grossed 174 million 1995 dollars at the box office.

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Hollywood isn’t known for its keen study of the outside world, but a book proposal by astronaut Lovell caught the attention of people who brought the story to director Howard. “The more I kept learning about the actual mission,” he said, “the more I realized just how dramatic the truth, in this particular instance, is.”

He soon recruited A-lister Hanks to play Lovell. “There’s something about the story of getting back home, which is one of the seven great stories of literature: How do you get back home? And that’s what this is,” Hanks said.

As a longtime space geek, Hanks was already predisposed to favoring the film. “I’ve always wanted to play an astronaut. I’ve always wanted to shoot a vast section of a movie completely encapsulated by nothing but metal, glass and switches, and I finally had a chance to do that,” he said. “This is real dream-come-true stuff here.”

1995 marked the dawn of computer-generated animation, and Apollo 13 uses the early technology to good effect to create some flight scenes. Fortunately, the production crew recognized the shortcomings of CGI and limited its use. For the dramatic splashdown scene near the end of the film, they employed a scale model of the command module on real parachutes, dropped from a helicopter to provide the necessary realism.

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But the real challenge was replicating the zero-gravity environment inside the spacecraft during the flight. To gain some insight into this, the cast and crew arranged for a flight in NASA’s zero-g simulating KC-135 cargo aircraft. The experience motivated Howard to investigate actually building sets inside the plane and shooting the movie inside it during zero-g flights. 

“If we really would have had to try to create the weightlessness with wires (on the actors), I sort of shudder to think what the movie would have really looked like,” Howard said.

Instead, the cast flew 612 25-second cycles in the Vomit Comet, totally 3 hours and 54 minutes of weightlessness. “The KC135 was used for most shots where you see our whole bodies,” explained Bacon. “Then we did a lot of the closeups on the ground, and they cut amazingly well. I can’t even remember if this is a KC135 shot or this is a ground shot.”

“Nobody wanted to let this story down,” Howard stated. “Not the actors, not the crew members, no one. I didn’t have to make any motivational speeches on this one. People were coming to work every day ready to give a hundred and fifty percent.”

“I had an acute sense of anxiety that I would be the one who became violently ill and totally incapacitated and a failure to the group,” said Paxton.

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Further, with expert advice available, the actors could be confident that they weren’t doing anything grossly unrealistic. “I’m really impressed with the authenticity of how we’re doing this,” observed Apollo 15 commander Dave Scott. “They are interested in getting this accurate and precise, down to not only the word, but the inflection of the word, and the meaning behind the word.”

“With Dave Scott from Apollo 15 here every day,” said Hanks, “we don’t have to do that thing that can happen in films where the director says, ‘Flick some switches.’” 

“Working on the film was kind of like cramming for your final exam or something,” said Ed Harris. “You’ve got all this information in your head, you’re really focused on it, you’re doing your homework the night before about the scene you’re going to do the next day.”

Nevertheless, the film’s defining characteristic turned out not to be the heroism of the astronauts, but that of the engineers on the ground who fought to find a way to save the astronauts. Apollo 13 made stars of engineers and brought the phrase “Failure is not an option,” into popular culture.

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“One of the first things that we did once we committed to making the movie was go to Houston, see mission control,” said Howard. “And I realized just how intense it was. How personally they took it. And I began to try to find ways to tell their story too.”

“Once the rocket leaves the launch pad, the flight director, he’s God,” Harris noted. “He’s got more power than the President of the United States at that point. He calls the shots.”

Howard put the same attention to detail that went into shooting authentic weightless scenes into recreating NASA’s mission control in Houston. “Ron is an absolute fanatic about every little detail being correct,” said Apollo 13 flight dynamics officer Jerry Bostic, who consulted on Apollo 13 and worked on the set daily. “I spend 14 hours a day here and I leave and I go look for the elevator,” he laughed. “Because the real control center in Houston was up on the third floor, and I forget because this thing is so real.

“You have a great story and you have all this incredible technology and you have something that was very important historically,” observed Bacon. “This moment was, in so many ways, NASA’s finest hour.”

For engineers, the film Apollo 13 might have been their finest hour too.

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Dan Carney is a Design News senior editor, covering automotive technology, engineering and design, especially emerging electric vehicle and autonomous technologies.

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New England College of Optometry Issues Safety Advisory for Solar Eclipse – New England College of Optometry

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NECO Issues Safety Advisory for Solar Eclipse – New England College of Optometry


Watching the celestial event safely is possible with the right equipment and some preparation.

With the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, the New England College of Optometry (NECO) urges the general public to observe this celestial phenomenon safely. Solar eclipses are rare events that spark widespread interest and excitement. To ensure everyone can enjoy the eclipse without risking their vision, NECO is sharing crucial guidelines for proper viewing.  

“Solar eclipses present a wonderful opportunity for communities to engage with astronomy, but it’s vital that safety is a  priority,” says George Asimellis, PhD, Msc, MBA, Professor of Vision Science at NECO. “Viewing a solar eclipse without appropriate protection can result in solar retinopathy, which can cause lasting damage to the eyes. You must take proper precautions to view the eclipse.” PLEASE NOTE: NECO recommends that individuals who have recently undergone eye surgery or who have chronic eye conditions should refrain from viewing the eclipse. 

Student helps patient pick glasses frame

To prevent eye injuries and ensure a memorable experience, NECO advises the following: 

  • Always use solar viewing glasses. “When gearing up to watch the magical solar eclipse, it’s important to use specialized solar filters known as ‘eclipse glasses,’” says Alina Reznik, OD ’16, NECO Alumni Liaison. “These viewers adhere to the international safety standard ISO 12312-2 for safe viewing.” The ISO certification should be visible somewhere on the product. Ordinary sunglasses, even those with UV protection, are NOT safe for looking directly at the sun. They transmit thousands of times too much sunlight to be used for solar viewing.
  • If you wish to capture the event, do not look at the sun through camera viewfinders or phone cameras, as this can also lead to serious eye damage and can even destroy a phone. 
  • The safest way to view the eclipse is to create a camera obscura by finding a piece of cardboard and piercing a small hole in the center. With your back to the sun, hold the cardboard at shoulder height. In your other hand, hold a sheet of paper and align it with the cardboard until you see a tiny image of the sun projected onto the surface of the paper. You can even put cardboard around the “screen” to block out ambient light and see the eclipse image more clearly.

NECO will host an eclipse viewing party on Monday, April 8, from 2:00-4:00pm at their main campus located at 424 Beacon Street in Boston’s Back Bay. Media are welcome to attend and receive a free pair of eclipse viewing glasses. Faculty will be present to talk about the science behind safely viewing an eclipse.

The map below (courtesy of NASA) shows the eclipse’s path of totality.

For those who reside outside the path of totality: The Boston area is outside the eclipse’s path of totality. However, we will be able to view a partial eclipse starting at about 2:10pm. Our area will experience moderate darkness and a drop in temperature during the partial eclipse, which will last two hours. Eclipse glasses must still be used to protect  your eyes from the harmful rays of the sun, even during a partial eclipse!

Our vision experts are available for comment and additional information on eye care during this astronomical event. Please contact our Marketing Department by calling (617) 587-5609, or email [email protected].

For more information from national experts on the April 8 solar eclipse, visit NASA or the American Optometric Association.

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Global wildlife study during COVID-19 shows rural animals are more sensitive to human activity

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Plant-eating animals more active, carnivores more cautious around humans 

One of the largest studies on wildlife activity—involving more than 220 researchers, 163 mammal species and 5,000 camera traps worldwide—reveals that wild animals react differently to humans depending on where the animals live and what they eat.

Bigger herbivores—plant-eating animals like deer or moose—tend to become more active when humans are around, while meat-eaters like wolves or wolverines tend to be less active, preferring to avoid risky encounters.

Urban animals like deer or raccoons may become more active around people, as they get used to human presence and find food like garbage or plants, which they can access at night. But animals living farther from cities and other developed areas are more wary of encountering people.

Wildlife during the pandemic ‘anthropause’

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Dr. Cole Burton

The new study, a collaboration across researchers from 161 institutions, used data from before and during the COVID-19 lockdowns to examine wildlife behaviour amid changing human activity levels.

“COVID-19 mobility restrictions gave researchers a truly unique opportunity to study how animals responded when the number of people sharing their landscape changed drastically over a relatively short period,” said lead author Dr. Cole Burton, an associate professor of forest resources management at UBC and Canada Research Chair in Terrestrial Mammal Conservation.

“And contrary to the popular narratives that emerged around that time, we did not see an overall pattern of ‘wildlife running free’ while humans sheltered in place. Rather, we saw great variation in activity patterns of people and wildlife, with the most striking trends being that animal responses depended on landscape conditions and their position in the food chain.”

In Canada, researchers monitoring areas such as Banff and Pacific Rim national parks, Cathedral, Golden Ears and South Chilcotin Mountains provincial parks, and the Sea-to-Sky corridor in B.C. found that carnivores like wolverines, wolves and cougars were generally less active when human activity was higher.

In several of these parks, and in cities such as Edmonton, large herbivores often increased their activity but became more nocturnal with the presence of more humans. Large carnivores were notably absent from the most human-dominated landscapes.

A coyote warily investigating a camera trap in Malcolm Knapp Research
Forest, British Columbia, Canada. Photo credit: Dr. Cole Burton, UBC WildCo

Preventing conflict through smart conservation measures

These findings highlight the importance of measures to minimize any detrimental effects of human disturbance on wildlife, including reducing overlaps that might lead to conflict.

Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor

“In remote areas with limited human infrastructure, the effects of our actual presence on wildlife may be particularly strong. To give wild animals the space they need, we may consider setting aside protected areas or movement corridors free of human activity, or consider seasonal restrictions, like temporary closures of campsites or hiking trails during migratory or breeding seasons,” said study co-author and UBC biologist Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor.

She added that strategies must also fit specific species and locations. In more remote areas, keeping human activity low will be necessary to protect sensitive species. In areas where people and animals overlap more, such as cities, nighttime is an important refuge for wildlife, and keeping it that way can help species survive. Efforts may focus on reducing human-wildlife conflict after dark, such as more secure storage of trash bins to reduce the number of animals getting into human food sources, or use of road mitigation measures to reduce vehicle collisions.

The findings are particularly useful amid the surge in global travel and outdoor recreation post-pandemic, Dr. Burton added.

“Understanding how wildlife respond to human activity in various contexts helps us develop effective conservation plans that have local and global impact. For that reason, we are working to improve wildlife monitoring systems using tools like the camera traps that made it possible to observe animal behaviours during the pandemic.”

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Three Canadian Student CubeSats Set for ISS Launch

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Longueuil, Quebec, – On , three CubeSats designed and built by Canadian students will launch to the International Space Station (ISS).This is the fourth and final launch of miniature satellites under the Canadian CubeSat Project. The teams finalized preparations of their CubeSats in at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The teams are:

  • QMSat – Université de Sherbrooke
  • Killick-1 – Memorial University
  • VIOLET – University of New Brunswick

Live coverage of the launch will air on NASA Live.

/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.

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