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.
stiiggy
22nd Jan 2021
Apollo 13 (1995)
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.
16th Dec 2017
Apollo 13 (1995)
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.
6th May 2020
Apollo 13 (1995)
13th Feb 2008
Apollo 13 (1995)
Question: When Aquarius is descending during re-entry, why is the Navy preparing Search & Rescue instead of the Coast Guard?
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.
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.
18th Dec 2017
Apollo 13 (1995)
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.
16th Oct 2019
Apollo 13 (1995)
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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.
stiiggy