The movie "Hidden Figures" - Alan Shepards' flight

I saw this movie a week or so back. Apart from the technical inconsistencies mentioned earlier it was quite entertaining. How was it that La La Land do so much better than this?

One thing I remember seeing in the movie (and have seen it before) is the images of stage separation, on the John Glenn flight I think. First there was separation and then "boom", the adapter was blown to bits. I bet they retrieved the camera, developed the film, and then said "Ohh, I think we should do that a little differently!"

My wife even thought it was a good movie, which is unusual because normally "enjoyable movie" and "rockets" don't go in the same sentence.

ColumbiaNX01 said:

I saw the movie. It was okay. Could of done with all the extra "drama" They add crap to a movie to make it more you know. Most movies based on a true story are not really that accurate. One movie that comes to mind as super accurate was Apollo 13.

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"Apollo 13," while it certainly was pretty accurate for a 'based on a true story' movie, fudged its facts a few times for dramatic purposes, including:

• Alan Shepard was not bumped from Apollo 13 to 14 because his 'ear infection had flared up'; in fact, NASA brass did not feel he would be back up to speed fast enough to go on 13 after just returning to active flight status in mid-1969;
• Jim Lovell did not host an Apollo 11 moonwalk party at his home; during the landing and moonwalk he was on duty in Mission Control in a support capacity;
• While there was some concern among astronauts and other NASA personnel that the incoming Nixon Administration might cut back on scheduled Apollo flights (as they eventually did, canceling 18, 19 and 20) there was never any serious chance the program would be canceled as early as Apollo 13-14 as the movie implied;
• Haise and Swigert did not get into a shouting match in the LM;
• Haise was not foul-mouthed as portrayed in the movie by the late Bill Paxton; in the movie he blurts out the S-word about a dozen times; in real life, Haise rarely swore;
• Marilyn Lovell did not use the term "BS" in an angry call to NASA HQ;
• The ages of the Lovell children were fiddled around with, and there was no conflict with a hippie daughter;
• Swigert was not notified of his substitution for Mattingly on the crew in the midst of a shower with a naked chick. Swigert's role as a swinging babe magnet was massively exaggerated in the movie;
• Mattingly was not the only astronaut working on simulator solutions for the flight sequences; pretty much all off-duty astronauts were called in to help.
  
  

My wife and I were watching Apollo 13 a few years back. At one point she leans to me and asks quietly, "When do they say 'Beam me up, Scotty'". True story LMFAO

Every now and then I get the chance to remind her of that...

JStarStar said:

"Apollo 13," while it certainly was pretty accurate for a 'based on a true story' movie, fudged its facts a few times for dramatic purposes, including:

• Alan Shepard was not bumped from Apollo 13 to 14 because his 'ear infection had flared up'; in fact, NASA brass did not feel he would be back up to speed fast enough to go on 13 after just returning to active flight status in mid-1969;
• Jim Lovell did not host an Apollo 11 moonwalk party at his home; during the landing and moonwalk he was on duty in Mission Control in a support capacity;
• While there was some concern among astronauts and other NASA personnel that the incoming Nixon Administration might cut back on scheduled Apollo flights (as they eventually did, canceling 18, 19 and 20) there was never any serious chance the program would be canceled as early as Apollo 13-14 as the movie implied;
• Haise and Swigert did not get into a shouting match in the LM;
• Haise was not foul-mouthed as portrayed in the movie by the late Bill Paxton; in the movie he blurts out the S-word about a dozen times; in real life, Haise rarely swore;
• Marilyn Lovell did not use the term "BS" in an angry call to NASA HQ;
• The ages of the Lovell children were fiddled around with, and there was no conflict with a hippie daughter;
• Swigert was not notified of his substitution for Mattingly on the crew in the midst of a shower with a naked chick. Swigert's role as a swinging babe magnet was massively exaggerated in the movie;
• Mattingly was not the only astronaut working on simulator solutions for the flight sequences; pretty much all off-duty astronauts were called in to help.

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Yes. Some of those bug me too, specifically the way that Ken Mattingly was working on solving the problem in the movie. He gave back a big flashlight and refused to use anything that wasn't in the Apollo 13 capsule while he attempted to troubleshoot their issue. Really? Don't you think it would be beneficial to be able to SEE what you're doing so that you can find a solution quicker and easier??? *Maybe* once they'd found a solution they'd test it in the darker conditions to find out how difficult it would be for the crew to do it, but when trying to find the solution to begin with you give yourself every advantage possible because it can only help. I know, drama to make the movie a little better, but an eye roll for me every time.

And I still think it's a great movie.

Thanks all; interesting conversation.

Just to be clear this "tail unit" is the piece the movie showed dropping off. The scene showed the motor still attached to the rest of the rocket. It's interesting that (apparently) this tail unit was actually made as a separate part of the bird, implying it might be possible to drop it off during flight.

cvanc said:

Thanks all; interesting conversation.

Just to be clear this "tail unit" is the piece the movie showed dropping off. The scene showed the motor still attached to the rest of the rocket. It's interesting that (apparently) this tail unit was actually made as a separate part of the bird, implying it might be possible to drop it off during flight.

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I think this is an example of the "power of suggestion". With the movie mistakenly showing it falling off, trying to figure out a plausible reason why it could be practical.

It was removable for a simple reason. ACCESS. Assembly/maintenance. With the engine bolted to the main tank section, and not being gimbaled. Although, the tail unit did have two very large access hatches. So the tail unit may not have been removed after original assembly, unless there was a major problem with the engine which would require better access or complete removal.

I have seen photos of some old fighter jets like the F-104 with the whole rear fuselage removed (aft of the wing), for accessing the engine for maintenance. Could not Google any, though. Eventually, they learned from those issues and designed the engines to be easier to just detach and remove from the back end of later fighter designs. Just as later on the Saturns, the engines were removable without disassembling major assemblies (remove/restore base plates / base heat shield panels)

So, here's the biggest reason why the tail unit could never be allowed to drop off with the Redstone engine still thrusting (and if after burnout, no point). The Tail Unit had the air rudders and the "jet vanes" that stuck into the exhaust of the engine to provide vectored thrust of the fixed engine. Drop the tail unit, no guidance of any kind would be possible.



Actually, those access hatches were not so big.



Below, vonBraun on the right. Worker installing one of the four jet vanes that stuck into the exhaust for vectored thrust. Literally a chain and sprocket system was connected between Air Rudder and Jet Vane pivot points so that one actuator drove both. K.I.S.S. (Saw inside of a tail unit once and noticed that. Motor was missing so it was possible to see inside).

At what point in flight had it been suggested the tail can be jettisoned? In space itself or in earth's atmosphere?

I believe that the Bomarc A jettisoned it's spent motor in flight. As for the Redstone dropping it's tail section, if true, then someone will need to revise his rockets book.

RocketT.Coyote said:

As for the Redstone dropping it's tail section, if true, then someone will need to revise his rockets book.

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Sigh.

Not true, not true, not true.

Movie got that part wrong, wrong, wrong.

Realize, i'm not writing this based on interpreting info on the internet, poorly worded wiki's and all.

"its on the internet (or in a movie) so it must be true". Nope.

I know this beginning from when I was a kid and remember seeing Alan Shepard's launch on TV and following the space program closely, thru researching the Redstone (focusing on the Jupiter-C and Mercury Redstone versions) in the 1980's when I researched both, in a lot of detail, as I was working up to build one of those as my first really serious scale model. I ended up doing the Jupiter-C (known later as Juno-I when it launched Explorer satellites), mainly because I could not work out a good way to do the dimpled pattern detail on the Mercury Spacecraft. That's one of the reasons why I looked inside a Redstone to notice the chain and sprocket assembly, I was literally crawling over it to get data and dimensions. See photo later of some of the data gathering.

Page 205 of Alway's Rockets of the World, about the Jupiter-C (Juno-I), among the Sources credit he used for his work are drawings I made which were printed in the January 1988 issue of American Spacemodeling magazine (Name of NAR's magazine at the time, now Sport Rocketry).

The 4" North Coast Rocketry kit from the late 1980's? That's not me with the NCR kit below. That's my model that NCR cloned the nose section of to make a mold for their kit. It wasn't a detailed model, actually, didn't do the 3.5" gap between tail unit and tank, or any surface detail or the antennas on the Instrument Unit. I built that one as a "sport flying" model for the 30th anniversary of Explorer-1. But I did have a lot of data and did make a smaller (BT-80) more detailed contest model but do not have a photo of that one. Still, the project ended up being modeler-limited, it was not data-limited - I know a lot of stuff about it but knowing and model building are two different things.




A friend, Randy Kelling, helping to measure the gap between the Tail Unit and the Redstone tank in the photo below, around 1985 or so. I rigged up a pole with rulers at 90 degrees to assist measuring things too high up to reach. In this case, used binoculars from farther back, at a better angle, to read the vertical ruler more accurately for the gap distance. Those twenty threaded assemblies connecting the two, were not explosive bolts. They were attached and detached using human-operated tools.

The V-2 was the father (or grandfather) of the Redstone, as the many of the engineers (von Braun included) were involved. The German engineers in WWII had a similar gap on the V-2 for the fin can as you see on the Redstone. That gap was where the mechanical connection between the fin can/tail unit was made to the airframe.

The pic below is from the V-2 on display at White Sands.



Greg

I still haven't seen Hidden Figures but definitely want to, even with the mistakes discussed here. I'm sure it's a good story regardless.

One mistake that I find REALLY hard to comprehend that could have slipped through is something I read on the IMDB list. "The Go/No Go calculation that features so prominently in the film takes place during the descent of Friendship 7, just before parachute deployment. It actually took place long before, when the retro-rockets were fired."

Is that really how it is in the film?? Like, if someone said No Go they wouldn't have a choice after the capsule is already in re-entry other than to release the parachutes.

Is that really how it is in the film??

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Yep. I guess they dumbed it down for the general population that has less knowledge of orbital entry mechanics. I can see their point, and it did make the movies possible a little more palatable for the general audience, but it did jar my technical nerves a bit more than the other technicalities the tweaked.

Yeah. Details like this have no impact on the general public... Most people probably worry about lack of wifi in orbit...

If you want to quibble about the details, what struck me was that not one single person was smoking. The space program ran on caffeine and nicotine. They would have had heaters a-blazing everywhere if it was really 1961.

gna said:

If you want to quibble about the details, what struck me was that not one single person was smoking. The space program ran on caffeine and nicotine. They would have had heaters a-blazing everywhere if it was really 1961.

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Yeah, that was one aspect of "Apollo 13" that was indeed pretty accurate -- lots of cigs in Mission Control. By about the time of Apollo/Soyuz the Surgeon General's report had made some headway.

This movie is still in the theaters but I just saw the movie show up on a couple of torrent sites for download, and not a cam version but what looks like a DVD rip. That's unusually fast.