Many of us knew the story from books, or even the Tom Hanks Apollo 13 film, but the detail here is fascinating.
PSA: Apollo 13 is currently marked as “Leaving Soon” on Netflix.
It's a fun read. It does seem to imply that the parachutes slowed them down from 25,000 mph, but the heat shield smashing through the atmosphere would have slowed them down first.
It's worth remembering that this is 1960s technology.
We shake our heads at round vs. square filter in the distant 1970 past, but flash forward 55 years and we have that a very similar situation in the active American space capsules - none of the spacesuits are compatible with any of the other ships.
The Boeing spacesuit isn't compatible with the SpaceX capsule, which was recently an issue with the Crew 9 mission. And neither are compatible with the NASA Orion capsule.
and I thought the most famous carbon dioxide absorber would be caustic potash solution
> On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of his spacecraft and became the first human to walk on the Moon. The first words spoken by him on the Moon that day are still remembered.
>[img that misquotes Neil Armstrong]
is a hilarious way to start
I never knew this whole story, fascinating. There is a nice intro for my “Interoperability in Healthcare” talks in there. Nice write up!
Wait did they really launch apollo 13 at 13:13 local time lol. I think of myself as not particularly superstitious but that's pushing it.
The part of story where Co2 absorbers were incompatible between two modules sounds really dumb. What was the cause?
Anyone selling house-size CO2 absorbers to keep CO2 in my house to more like pre-industrial 200ppm rather than the 800ppm that's more common of house air in cities?