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Did an Unnamed MIT Student Save Apollo 13?
lukehopewell1 writes "When the Apollo 13 reported an explosion on board, NASA started a marathon effort to get the three astronauts home. Several options were considered, but history tells how flight director Gene Kranz ordered a slingshot around the moon. The story stayed that way for over 40 years, until this weekend when an ex-NASA press secretary came forward and said that an unnamed MIT grad student came up with the idea to slingshot the spacecraft around the moon. NASA reportedly buried his involvement at the last minute when it was discovered that he was a long-haired, bearded hippie-type.' Now the internet has gone on the hunt to find out who this unnamed hero really is."
0) Oh look, an opportunity to get hits while everyone's talking about the Mars landing;
1) Every academic was a "long-haired, beared hippie-type" in the '60s, the following decade being essentially the '60s until the rise of neoliberalism and the resultant Oil Crisis. And all the decent academics (there are a lot more academics today, but most of them are shit) still are;
2) The slingshot effect was well-known back then;
3) Why turn this into a conspiracy? It's more likely that some MIT guy commented on the idea, but NASA did the hard work of getting the slingshot to work. Ideas are easy - workable implementations of ideas are hard;
4) Thank goodness NASA is still around to do the scientific research. I was getting bored with stories about SpaceX doing a Boeing but giving the first hit for free.
NASA analyzed the hell out of every inch of the trajectory pre-flight, *and* had a Mission Control position (RETRO) with a dedicated back room staff who spent the entire flight doing so in real time. If find it not only highly unlikely that NASA wouldn't know that at 'x' position along the trajectory they couldn't execute an abort - but even more unlikely that a MIT student would have the requisite deep understanding of the trajectory and the available computational resources to perform the required calculations within a few hours of the accident.
It is true that MIT was involved in trajectory design and analysis, so it sounds like someone has taken that and expanded it into what amounts as an urban legend. (Also note the individual spreading the story was a junior staffer in NASA's PR department at the time of the accident - not connected with Mission Control at all.)
What I find dismaying is that you, and Reddit, and probably most of the rest of the 'net have already judged that a junior PR staffer not connected with mission control is telling the truth - and without any evidence or even bothering to ask if this is plausible, are pronouncing NASA guilty.