Apollo 13 in Real Time website offers new insight into mission, 50 years later

One of the most historically significant events in our short space faring history has been painstakingly pieced together to give a complete audio and video timeline of the ill fated but eventually successful Apollo 13 mission in real time as it happened , all of the Mission Control audio , space-to-ground audio and on-board recorder audio is presented and played as if it were happening today.

We are given the opportunity to start our journey 1 minute before launch or to jump in and listen to what was happening at this specific time nearly 50 years ago , SPACE NERDS THIS IS FOR YOU ... AND ME

apolloinrealtime.org...

"The most important aspect of this website is the included mission control audio that was digitized specifically for this project," said Feist in an interview with collectSPACE.com. "This material has been in the National Archives and hasn't been heard since 1970. It includes recordings of the flight controllers throughout mission control for the entire mission."

Like the 2019 feature-length documentary "Apollo 11," on which Feist also worked, the audio includes the conversations at each mission control console, to and from each flight controller's back room support teams and phone conversations like the one between Mattingly and Marilyn Lovell.

"The last five of these tapes were only recently found and were just digitized at Johnson Space Center this past January," said Feist. "They contain the period of the mission surrounding the on board explosion that disabled the mission and were used as part of the accident investigation in 1970."

"A member of our volunteer team, Jeremy Cooper, wrote a brilliant piece of software that uses data signals on the tapes to measure the severe speed distortions that plagued these recordings. This allowed for the distortion unique to each tape to be corrected out of each digital sample via a proprietary process. The result is stunningly clear audio that is perfectly synced to the original mission time. There is 7,200 hours of this material on the website," Feist said.

Another member of the team, archivist Stephen Slater, then painstakingly matched the audio to the available silent film shot inside Mission Control.

"I used reference points in the room such as mission clocks and console displays to narrow down the possible timeframes," Slater told collectSPACE. "The end result really brings some quite famous Mission Operations Control Room moments to life, some of which had actually been re-enacted for the 1995 movie based purely on the audio."

Also included is commentary from the Apollo Flight Journal and NASA's recently released 4K recreations of what the Apollo 13 crew saw while swinging around the moon based on data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).
www.space.com...

I'd like to thank the team behind this brilliant effort for their work in bringing something truly worthwhile to the internet from a time when America really was Great.
Bravo.

G man drops another truly great thread, cheers mate

Wheres the part when it states "Houston we have a problem, the earth looks flat from up here"

a reply to: gortex

S&F for the contribution. The accomplishments of our early space program were truly remarkable, given the level of technology at the time. Those astronauts had the courage of any hero ever recorded.

I was with you right up until that last line of the OP.

The accomplishments of NASA notwithstanding, America had some deep issues, that the repercussions of which still exist, to some extent, today.

Racism, inequality, and the fiasco we call Vietnam are just a few examples.

a reply to: Mach2

Notwithstanding those issues to do what they did through the age of Apollo was a truly great achievement and served as an inspiration for a generation of kids lucky enough to experience the marvels they achieved , inequality , racism and war will always exists but greatness is fleeting.

a reply to: gortex

Totally agree, just though that last sentence was a bit too all encompassing.

I realize it's likely just the cinicism I have accumulated over the years.

I remember following it on the news in "real time," and that it seemed like it took forever for the capsule to make it around the Moon and get back to Earth. And indeed, it took days. Everyone kept asking why they had to go all the way to the Moon first.

a reply to: gortex

Thanks you for this. I'm jumping ahead of the "live +50 years" part and looking at later conversations that I find interesting.

Around the 128:58 mark and the 129:10 mark, while Mission Control was in the middle of giving Fred Haise a loooooooong list of procedures for jettisoning the LM, Commander Jim Lovell breaks into the discussion sounding a little frustrated (but still professional) about how many close-out procedures and switch-flippings are required for jettisoning the LM -- an LM that is just going to burn up anyway -- and wanted to make sure that everything on that list is essential.

These sort of exchanges between the astronauts and the ground just really make it clear that these were real human beings up there with real concerns about their chances of survival, and not emotionless robots.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

I've been lucky enough to meet Lovell and Haise (as well as the grounded Mattingly), their stories are fascinating. Lovell is definitely someone you would want on your side. They're also happy to point out what the film got wrong!

There are some nice exchanges early on where old hand Lovell points out things to relative novices Haise and Swigert.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People
...They're also happy to point out what the film got wrong!

One of my favorite little parts of the film was when they all got back into the CM (Swigert had gotten in earlier to do the restart procedures) and took their seats, Lovell (Hanks) noticed a paper note that Swigert (Bacon) used to cover over one of the switches that said "NO!"

Lovell asked Swigert what that was, and Swigert said he was getting a little punchy and didn't want to accidentally jettison the LM while Lovell and Haise were still in it. Lovell responded very matter-of-factly and seriously, "Yeah -- that was a good idea."

I don't know how realistic that was, but it didn't really matter to me because it made for a good movie moment. I would think that accidentally jettisoning the JM took more than just flipping a wrong switch, but I can imagine that there were in fact certain switches that the crew were afraid of accidentally flipping.

So while the exact scene may or may not be true, the overall sentiment likely was.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

To separate the LM , NASA used a process from the University of Toronto in Canada

Because the SM had been jettisoned before separation , the CM could not use the SM RCS not back away from the LM as would normally be done

NASA was concerned about LM colliding with CM after separation - needed to get LM away from CM to prevent such a collision

Toronto calculated that be pressurizing the tunnel between LM and CM that when separated the escaping air would
impart sufficient velocity to keep them apart.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

According to the book on which the film was based, that is actually true:

books.google.co.uk... 3U0_8sUozvuEBeZAv7tk7cj0CmX9kQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuzJW39p_oAhX6ThUIHeJmBncQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=did%20swigert%20have%20'no'%20taped%20over%2 0a%20switch&f=false

The Apollo Flight journal has these extracts from the Technical debrief:

Lovell, from 1970 Technical debrief: "When we got to the point to jettison the SM, I thrusted up. Then, Fred went to verify that Jack was going to throw the right switch."
Swigert, from 1970 Technical debrief: "I wanted Fred there to make sure that I raised the CM/SM Sep switch and not the CM/LM Sep switches."
Haise, from 1970 Technical debrief: "I did go, but he had gray tape over the LM Sep switches. I figured that was enough of a safeguard and the way Jim thrusted, I needed to be there to control the pitch again with the TTCA."