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Apollo 13 Engineers to be Honored
sconeu writes "Yahoo! News is carrying a story that the engineers who helped save the crew of Apollo 13 will be honored by GlobalSpec.
The article mentions the jury rigged air scrubbers, and gives duct tape its due." Here is our coverage of the 35th anniversary.
An inanimate carbon rod
Brocklesby Park Cricket Club
Duct tape is like The Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it's used to bind the universe together.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
No criticism to the Apollo 13 engineers. What they did was amazing. But what's this story got to do with them?
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It's odd how everyone seems to think duct tape is some universal god send. Why has no one imformed blue peter that duct table can be used for anything? Surely they could make a small tank or a space ship without toilet rolls if it's THAT good.
I like muppets.
Now we just have to figure out how to use duct tape to convert from english to metric units.
...why the air scrubbers were different shapes in the first place? Was it because of an engineering reason (room/volume to fit into) or because two different teams were working on the designs of the two modules? Seems daft that on essentially the same spacecraft, there are two devices that do the same job with different designs. It's always bothered me...
That aside, it is good to see these guys being recognised.
I knew they didn't get a fair trial...
Bravo to them and the Apollo 13 crew. Well done!
Too lazy to create a sig...
And Tom Hanks, and ...
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
No engineering project is complete unless it's held together by copious amounts of duct tape. No exceptions.
Jury-rigged or Jerry-rigged are both valid with slightly different meanings http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/mifjrrybltjryrggd.shtm l
Okay jery-rigging I can understand, but jury-rigging? That sounds like something a tobacco company would do.
Congratulations to the Apollo 13 engineers.
They should do something like this every year. They have the Grammies, Emmys, etc., why not the Nerdies? They could use Slashdot sections as the categories.
Because a quick search of bartelby.com would let you know that "jerry-rig" and "jury-rig" are valid terms, with "jerry-rig" implying shoddier work. Make sure you're right before you flame next time.
"One thing a Southern boy will never say is, 'I don't think duct tape will fix it.'"
That's so cool, but obviously means I'll never want to visit the South without my own personal surgeon.
Given the cost of failure, you take more stuff than you absolutely need. The trick is then to be able to reconfigure the stuff in ways that weren't originally intended. I think it was the Voyager that had its spare parts reconfigured after it had been in space a long time. The result was that its computers became much more powerful than when it was launched.
Strangely, the masters of this seem to be the Russians. When Russian space crews work with American space crews, they complain that the Americans have poor bailing wire skills. The Russians are always working with broken down junk and have become adept at it. The Americans tend to be more helpless when something goes wrong. I think it shows something bad that has happened to the space program. In the beginning, the space program was quite primitive but it became more and more sophisticated. The result is actually less robust.
Come on, it's a couple days old already. Ok, I'm expecting to the the obligatory "you're new here, aren't you" response.
Just another day in Paradise
Congratulations!
"plastic bags, cardboard and duct tape"
I shall go nowhere without them.
You have been warned.
No. It's "jury rigged" and "jerry built".
"Jury rigged" implies a kludge that allows you to survive (say, if your ship got dismasted, or something). "Jerry built" applies mostly to extremely poorly built houses (the kind that has mortar made of flour paste).
What a long, strange trip it's been.
This was on cnn.com for a while http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/04/19/apollo13. engineers.ap/index.html
That aside - they did do a damn nice job bringing Apollo 13 back to earth.
Get Paid to search
sure they did a brilliant job duct-tapeing the pieces, but a really brilliant engineer would have a.o. forced all subcontractors to use the same type of scrubber....
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
2 years to honour the people who bungled the iraq planning.No wonder the US is a joke nation now.
This award should be given to MacGuyver - we know it was really him who did this.
IN all honesty, this is geekdom at it's finest!
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Jury rig is something a mafia don on trial gets away with.
Jerry rig comes to us from World War II. The Germans were known amongst the allies, ever quick and able with a good racial nickname, as "Jerry". Toward the end of the war, with German industrial productivity crushed and little supplies available, the Germans had to improvise with scraps of whatever they could scrounge. Somehow, mostly by sheer guts, they managed to keep on fighting with their jerry-rigged junk.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Thank God I'm not an astronaut.
Free Firefox news reader.
As for which was uttered on Apollo 13, I think the latter phrase is the one that accompanied the eponymous movie about the troubled flight (IMDB confirms this) and so has become more well known amongst a certain generation than the original.
As someone who used to teach English, hats off to Swigert, who in his moment of crisis used the more appropriate present perfect tense (have + past participle) to suggest an incident that happened in the (recent) past but is still (extremely) relevant now.
Sorry.... I really should get out more.
McF
Duct Tape for an Engineer is like the Dark Side for a Jedi Knight!
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
ducktape is merely a physical manifestation of regexps
http://www.bash.org/?11397
...by putting the engineering plans and documentation on the Internet! Then we can build some and make a Beowulf cluster... oh wait.
DaGoodBoy
My God! It's full of Voids!
who put the 12 volt oxygen tank heater in a 72 volt circuit? I'd like to know what happened to that guy ;)
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Guess it was a while ago but I can't remember how they did it. That's Tom Hanks for you.
As a result here's my executive summary:
- oxygen tank exploded
- 2 of 3 fuel cells lost
"Houston, we've had a problem."
- Ed Smylie, engineer at home watching TV disaster rushes into the centre
- O2 buildup fixable with lithium hydroxide canisters to help CO2 buildup...
but some of the backup square canisters were not compatible with the round openings in the lunar module
"If you saw the movie (`Apollo 13'), it wasn't like that," Smylie said, adding there wasn't any hollering and screaming. "Everything is pretty calm, cool and collected in our business."
- used duck-tape to convert the backup square canisters to fit the round lunar module fittings
- this allowed the astronauts to breath just that little bit longer
A blog I run for the wealth
In times like these, where we, the public, have lost faith in our news institutions after RatherGate and Fox News, I'm thankfull that we can still trust respected and sensible journalism sites like http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/www.ufos-aliens.co.uk for our news and information.
These guys deserved special recognition decades ago. What they did for those guys up there was nothing short of remarkable, especially in a highly dangerous environment such as space, and most remarkably with the fledgling technology they had available.
Kudos to the often-uncelebrated ground crew and their determination to get Lovell and crew back safely.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
A saint in India saved these guys. Without Him, there would have been no return. Ask them, they will tell you that at their worst moment, they suddenly saw things clearer, and were able to work without illusion... ask them
We all dance, we all sing.
-The Streets
Ahem, what about the Central Floridian Middle-School Teacher who took out his astronomy class to chart stars, and found out that if NASA had "fired the thrusters" at the time they had planned to - because they had charted the moon's alignment improperly - would've completely missed the mood and sent these guys spinning out into the middle of no where?
I mean, I figured when the movie came out that no one was going to mention that little "goof up" that NASA had - you know, it's not all good having your measurements and projections corrected by some teacher and his students from a junior high school while they're out stargazing with whatever telescopes their money could buy them - but I would love to see this at least mentioned somewhere.
They each got a certificate and I think even perhaps a hand-shake.
Ah, the little forgotten unsung heros of history.
P.S. Yes, I do rant about this everytime anything with Apollo 13 comes up in conversation.
...the Apollo engineers had been watching too much MacGyver.
The reason this is such a wonderful geek film is that there is no bad guy. No evil to overcome. It's not even man versus nature. It's man versus The Problem, and man, brandishing a slide rule and some duct tape, triumphs.
This is not my sandwich.
They should honor the guy who did those. He did not work at NASA when Apollo 13 happened. He had worked for them about five years previous as some kind of student intern or something. He figured out stuff like that and put it in the file. When they had a sudden need, they pulled the plan out, and it was good to go.
Duct Tape -- never leave home without it.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
When in doubt, check wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_rigged
On sailing ships, the jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of loss of the original mast. The term "jury" is believed (Skeat) to have its source in a Latin and Old French root meaning "aid" or "succour".
Although ships were observed to perform reasonably well under jury rig, the rig was quite a bit weaker than the original, and the ship's first priority was normally to steer for the nearest friendly port and acquire replacement masts. The term "jury-rigged" has since passed into general usage, denoting some improvised substitute was employed temporarily or in an emergency.
But I still have no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean...
And another question I have, wich might be out of line, I'm not sure, was it not the same engineers who build a spacecraft that exploded in the first place? I mean, terific job of saving the day, but explosions generaly don't happen by itself, do they..
You're stupid. "It's" and "grammatical."
You know what guys, who gives a rat's ass where the term came from....jury rigged, jerry rigged, who friggin' gives a shit...both terms are used by folks and 99% of the population know what the terms imply.....apparently except for you guys bickering over what is the correct term.
I'm wondering why Jerry built means poorly built?
Surely they aren't referring to German concrete structures in WWII? Yea they looked ugly as hell but just you try to get rid of 5 foot thick rebar concrete in a dome shape.
the original term was "jour rig" IIRC. "jour" is french for "day" so hence "rigged for the day" is the raw translation. language shifted, and "jury rig" became the new spelling of it
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
If it is not supposed to move and does, then use duct tape.
the original term was "jour rig" IIRC. "jour" is french for "day" so hence "rigged for the day" is the raw translation. language shifted, and "jury rig" became the new spelling of it
Well I always thought it came from the idea that what you are doing works, but it is not the right thing to do. Like rigging a jury in your favor would get positive results, but that's not how the system is supposed to work. Of course, "mayday!" is actually a corruption of the a french phrase that means "help me!" so your explaination is possible.
It's nice to see good engineering work finally get the recognition it deserves. I seriously think that one of the main reasons people are turned off from engineering/science is that they see it as non-rewarding. Most business professionals get a lot more recognition for their work, even though it's less challenging. Everyone is aspiring to be that "celebrity CEO" type rathen than focusing on doing their best in a job that's less visible.
That said, I wonder if it would even be possible to pull off something like this in the US anymore. With such low interest in math and science, and a low level of education, how would we find people qualified enough to think through things like this?
Does anyone on slashdot know how to spell? It's not jury rigged it's jerry-rigged; a nautical term. A rigged jury is usually illegal and has no bearing at all on this article.
Go ahead mod me down you imperial unit using dyslexic twits.
What's that? What?
Sorry, my bad. The article says "Apollo", not "Apple".
It is Slashdot afterall. Surely you understand the misread. You'll forgive me, right?
My next door neighbor who worked on the apollo 13 mission died over a year ago. A nice old guy who wasn't too ashamed to admit that the problem was with the rutine checks before launch. I suspected foul play when I saw this honor being made now, and it's really unfortunate/offensive that half the engineers are probably dead now.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Duct tape was actually used for it's intended purpose in saving the Apollo 13 astronauts.
The tape was used to actually seal an air duct that put air through the CO2 scrubber.
Perhaps because the word "jerry" also used to mean a guzunder, aka a chamber-pot?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Quite possibly, 'journeyman' originally meant a worker hired on a day-by-day basis.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That's right. I mean the flags are all wrong and the shadows are fluttering. Or something.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
a worker who travels and/or is hired to work on a day-to-day basis.
this is why i love this language, however often i may mangle it.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Quite possibly, 'journeyman' originally meant a worker hired on a day-by-day basis.
No, the origin to that is more straight-forward. In most medieval guilds you had at least three ranks. They were apprentice, journeyman, and master. An apprentice learned and practiced the basics of the trade from the resident master (or masters). Then when apprentices had sufficient expertise they were sent out into the world to ply their trade on their own. There were two main reasons for this, a chance to gain experience they wouldn't otherwise have, and to also limit direct competetion between members of the same guild. This is why they were called "journeymen".
Wasn't part of the problem also do impart to funky engineering?
I'm not trying to be a troll here, but aren't we a little late with that? Or is it just a celebration thing and they are recelebrating their good deeds?
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher