Question: When Aquarius is descending during re-entry, why is the Navy preparing Search & Rescue instead of the Coast Guard?
Answer: Because the Navy was assigned the Search, Rescue and Recovery task for all of NASA's space program. Imagine how long it would take the Coast Guard to get to the other side of the world.
Question: Why did the Apollo 13 spacecraft need a parachute? They were landing on water not solid ground. It's easier to survive a fall when landing on water, so why would they need a parachute if they were landing on water?
Answer: Spacecraft re-enter Earth's atmosphere at extremely high velocity (thousands of miles per hour). Atmospheric friction slows the spacecraft descent somewhat; but, without parachutes, the Apollo spacecraft would still reach the surface traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. Landing in water at such high speed would be like hitting concrete, which would of course be instantly fatal. Hence the necessity of multiple parachutes. The Apollo program (and all early U.S. manned space programs) chose to land in the ocean for two reasons: 1) It was easier to track spacecraft re-entry from horizon-to-horizon at sea without visual and radar obstacles, and; 2) It was faster and easier to position several Navy vessels in the general splashdown location, then deploy helicopters to rapidly retrieve the astronauts and their spacecraft.
Question: How come all news networks refused to show Apollo 13's live TV broadcast?
Answer: The US had been to the moon twice before. America had already become jaded with NASA's successes and weren't interested in minute by minute coverage before they'd even reached the lunar surface.
The American public was not jaded with the lunar program so much as it was the Big Three television networks that had become complacent.
Question: Why couldn't the fuel cells be opened again once they were closed?
Answer: The reactant valves to the fuel cells could not be re-opened once they were closed (except by ground servicing) because they are very delicate and must be precisely calibrated. Although CAPCOM tells Lovell to manually close the valves for cells 1 and 3, they had already failed and closed so this had no effect.
Did they really try closing fuel cells 1 and 3 like in the movie?
Answer: Yes they did. And as in the movie, it was futile since the reac valves had failed anyway.
Question: How come Marilyn can't let her daughter go out as a hippie for Halloween?
Answer: Most likely because at the time, Hippies represented the counter-culture, which is/was in direct opposition to the conservative generation of the mother and not something Marilyn would want associated with the Lovells family given their high profile.
Question: When Apollo 13 launches, there is a lot of white stuff that look like shingles (I don't know how else to describe it) that fall off the space craft as it is rising. What is it?
Answer: It's ice that condensed on the side of the rocket. The fuel has to be kept at low temperature, leading to the rocket being extremely cold.
I get it. The fuel needs to be kept at low temperatures. Otherwise the rocket would overheat, and explode.
The fuel does not have to be kept at low temperatures. The ice "shingles" form on the outside skin of the Saturn V that surrounds the oxidiser tanks. The oxidiser is liquid oxygen, which liquefies at −182.96 °C, cold enough to freeze atmospheric water vapour into ice.
The answer to the question states that the fuel has to be kept at a low temperature.
Then the answer is wrong. The fuel of the Saturn V (kerosene) was kept at ambient temperature whereas the oxidiser (liquid oxygen) was kept at near cryogenic temperatures. Look, this isn't rocket science! No, wait, yes it is.
Then why is the ice there?
It forms the skin of the Saturn V that encloses the oxidiser tanks. The liquid oxygen in the tanks is so cold (−182.96 °C) that atmospheric water freezes into ice and is dislodged when the Saturn V is launched.
Ever noticed a wet can or glass of a cold drink in the summer? That's humidity from the air condensing on the cold surface of the glass. Now imagine if that can or glass were about 300° BELOW 0. That same humidity would condense and freeze. It being Florida in July, very humid, lots of condensation turning to ice. It didn't happen to the Space Shuttle because the tank was covered in that brown foam to insulate it like a styrofoam cooler.
Question: Since it was so cold on the return journey to Earth, why didn't the astronauts wear their full space suits they wore on lift-off to keep warm? The just seem to be wearing their lightweight flight overalls.
Answer: Because they need to be able to move quickly through the confined space of the module, and the full suits would be far too bulky in an emergency.
The older Apollo missions all splashed down with full suits and helmet on. Just the launch suits, not the much bulkier EVA (moon walk) suits.
Answer: According to Jim Lovell in a later interview about the mission, the crew considered putting on their space suits but in addition to them being too bulky, there was concern the suits would make them perspire too much, thus making them wet and even colder. It wasn't quite as cold as depicted in the movie, it was always above freezing, and there were no icy windows or frozen hot dogs.
According to Lovell in his book, there actually were frozen hot dogs.
Answer: In addition, since they have to leave the ship after landing, the suit filling with water would be very dangerous.
The launch abort mode was for an ocean landing, so they would have been just as vulnerable at the start of the mission. I get your line of thinking though.
Answer: Don't remember the source (the actual movie or one of many books) but I do remember there were only two moon suits on board (the CMP, Swigert, doesn't land on the moon). I believe they decided to suffer together. I misread the question, but the option for wearing the Lunar EVA suits was considered. IIRC, they did actually wear the boots at one point.
Question: What did Houston mean by they need Omni bravo?
Answer: The Apollo spacecraft had 4 omni-directional control antennas, designated A, B, C, and D. "Omni Bravo" was the B antenna. When Mission Control in Houston said they needed Omni Bravo, it meant they wanted Apollo 13 to try to activate the B antenna.
What were Omni-directional control antennas?
Omni Directional Control Antennas were capable of sending and receiving signals from any direction. The Apollo 13 spacecraft had 4 redundant antennas of this type, which allowed Mission Control in Houston to remotely control certain systems when necessary.
Answer: Omni directional antennas can broadcast in any direction at once, as opposed to one that can only broadcast to a particular spot.
Question: In the ending credits, you see "The Whiz Kid" and "The Whiz Kid's mom". Who are they and where do they appear in the movie? I have looked, but I have never seen Austin O'Brien anywhere in the movie even though he is listed in the credits as "The Whiz Kid", same with the Whiz Kid's mom. Is this a mistake or do they appear in some background?
Answer: Austin O'Brien has stated in an interview that although he filmed a scene it was dropped from the movie.
Question: What made the banging the sound the crew heard before the oxygen tank exploded?
Answer: When Mission Control asked Jack Swigert to "stir" the No. 2 oxygen tank, Swigert complied; immediately, the astronauts heard and felt a loud banging noise followed by an actual explosion. As it happened, there were damaged electrical wires powering the "cryo-stir" fan inside oxygen tank No.2. Those wires violently shorted out when Swigert activated them, sparking an intense fire (fueled by the ship's pure oxygen atmosphere), destroying vital tank insulation, and overheating the No.2 oxygen tank to the point of rupture in a matter of seconds. So, the banging noises they heard just before the explosion were the result of electrical wiring violently shorting out and a flash-fire erupting, which precipitated the tank explosion.
Oddly enough, Jack Swigert had stirred the No. 2 oxygen tank a couple of times earlier in the mission, with no problems whatsoever. Why the wiring suddenly failed on this last attempt is still a subject of debate.
Why would it be subject to debate? The further into the flight, the less liquid oxygen in the tank. The frayed wires were not exposed until this point in the flight. Exposed wires allowed the arc. The arc caused the explosion.
What does the "ship's pure oxygen atmosphere" have to do with it? The ship didn't explode or burn. Apollo 1, yes, the command module did, but not 13.
Question: Why couldn't the crew put on their spacesuits, then go out and assess the damage?
Answer: That would involve depressurizing the command module and LEM. Given that a substantial percentage of their on-board O2 supply just got vented into space, wasting more at that point to only confirm what they already knew wasn't worth the trouble.
Answer: Even if they could go out and assess the damage, they didn't have the tools, materials, or knowledge to actually be able to fix it.
Question: Was the atmosphere and splash landing as dramatic as shown in the movie?
Answer: Naturally the movie ramps up the drama, but it was a fairly accurate depiction. The radio blackout lasted a little longer than depicted in the film due to the shallow angle of the ship's reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Also, the first communication from the capsule was not from Jim Lovell and was from Jack Swiggert, who said, "Okay, Joe." The amount of condensation shown inside the capsule was also accurate.
Question: Did anyone play him- or herself in this movie? That seems to be typical for many movies of this kind, but I'm not aware of anyone doing it in Apollo 13 (yes, I know Jim Lovell had a cameo at the end).
Answer: Other than a few individuals who appears in archive footage taken from the era, who could technically be said to be playing themselves, no, there's nobody. Too much time has really passed since the original events for anybody to be convincing as their younger selves.
Answer: Marilyn Lovell also played herself. She is in the viewing stands clapping.
Marilyn Lovell doesn't play herself, she just has a cameo (the same as Jim Lovell) where she plays on onlooker at the site.
Question: What was the point of temporarily shutting down every electrical system in the command module?
Answer: To save the re-entry batteries.
Question: In the scene where Lovell's wife is watching an interview of Lovell, he is asked if he can recall a moment when he experienced fear. Lovell proceeds to talk about a time when he's in a fighter jet and gets lost. Is this story a real life experience of the real Jim Lovell, or did they make it up for the movie?
Answer: It's a true story. I read it in Lovell's book Lost Moon. Great book.
Question: One of the mistakes listed for this film says that Lovell's daughter Barbara slams a copy of the not-yet-released Beatles album "Let It Be" into her rack. How can you tell what album she's holding in that scene, when you only get a split-second glimpse of it? Without using slow-motion or freeze-frame (which is not permitted for mistake submissions), it doesn't seem possible to conclusively identify the album in question. Or is the background music for that scene a song from that particular Beatles album?
Question: There's an "abort" dial Tom Hanks looks at once as they are taking off and once when the engine shuts off. What would happen if he turned the abort dial?
Answer: The launch escape system, the 'spike' mounted above the command module, would fire a set of four thrusters designed to pull the command module away from the rest of the launch vehicle. Pitch thrusters fire to move the command module laterally, in order to avoid the possibility of the module being hit by the oncoming launch vehicle, or to prevent the module from landing in a dangerous location in the event of a launchpad fire. Once these thrusters have done their job, the escape system jettisons and the module lands using the onboard parachutes. The above describes what happens when the control is rotated in the counter-clockwise direction indicated by the control's legend. If the control is instead rotated in the clockwise direction then control of the rocket passes from the computers built into the Saturn V rocket (later jettisoned with the stages) to the computers built into the command module proper. This control was never used in an Apollo launch.
Chosen answer: Aquarius was most likely going to splashdown in international waters; since the U.S. Coast Guard only has jurisdiction within American waters, the Navy would have to rescue them.
Xofer