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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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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...
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
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.
For that kind of industrial strength goodness you need gaffer tape.
I've seen doors hinged on that stuff alone, it leaves duct tape for dead.
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.
jury-rig (jr-rg) tr.v. jury-rigged, jury-rigging, jury-rigs
To rig or assemble for temporary emergency use; improvise: The survivors of the wreck jury-rigged some fishing gear.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
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
It's a common corruption of the term. GIs weren't always known for their spelling prowess.
Incidently, Google returns 173,000 hits for "jerry rig", while coming up with only 109,000 for "jury rig".
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
...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); }
But the term is far older than WWII. It was in common usage in the British navy in the 1700s. One posible origin is the old Frence 'ajurie' - to help.
Sorry - you're WWII origin is an urban myth.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
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
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!
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.
Duct Tape can be used for all sorts of neat things... duck tape, otoh, should only be used on Ducks. Well, I guess I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
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.
When I first read this article on /. I was about to make a post "uhm hasn't this already been posted on /. before?" Then I realized I had read it on CNN one or two days ago...
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.