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.

The real hero was of course

[beders]

An inanimate carbon rod

Obligatory duct tape joke

[gowen]

Duct tape is like The Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it's used to bind the universe together.

Duct tape saves the day

[kiljin]

Now we just have to figure out how to use duct tape to convert from english to metric units.

Damn it

[Anonymous Coward]

"the jury rigged air scrubbers"

I knew they didn't get a fair trial...

Engineering 101

[jag2k]

No engineering project is complete unless it's held together by copious amounts of duct tape. No exceptions.

Dammit, they misspelled jerry-rigging

[Nintenfreak]

Okay jery-rigging I can understand, but jury-rigging? That sounds like something a tobacco company would do.

Good Idea

[lbmouse]

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.

Great quote about duct tape...

[tyroneking]

"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.

Re:Thing I'd like to know is...

[CausticPuppy]

done by subcontractors

And not just any subcontractors, mind you... but the lowest bidders. :-)

Re:Thing I'd like to know is...

[Illserve]

The obvious answer is because the entire thing was a hoax. Ron Howard was contacted at the time (he was already 15 and NASA computers predicted he would be a great film director) and asked what would make his movie (already planned for production in 1995 back in the 70's) dramatic, and he came up with this idea.

It should also be pointed out that Tom Hanks is a robot specifically made to star in Apollo 13, which explains his meteoric rise to acting stardom. In fact, Bosom Buddies was created to serve as his vehicle by NASA.

NASA has more plans in place for both Ron and Tom in further upcoming movies about the "moon landings". Just you wait.

Re:Thing I'd like to know is...

[Anonymous Coward]

The most impressive enginering feats were done with slave labor.

Yup, it's truly amazing what can be accomplished when your workers fear for their lives.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Redundancy

[Phidoux]

Mod +1 Redundant?

Ob. QDB ref

[Anonymous Coward]

<zx64> ducktape is merely a physical manifestation of regexps

http://www.bash.org/?11397 [bash.org]

How about we honor them...

[DaGoodBoy]

...by putting the engineering plans and documentation [space.com] on the Internet! Then we can build some and make a Beowulf cluster... oh wait.

DaGoodBoy

What about the engineer...

[ch-chuck]

who put the 12 volt oxygen tank heater in a 72 volt circuit? I'd like to know what happened to that guy ;)

It was a saint

[notherenow]

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

Re:Obligatory duct tape joke

[TheHawke]

Until you mangle a strip by jamming the sticky sides together, then it's all DARK!

I hate when that happens...

Its obvious...

[DeathByDuke]

...the Apollo engineers had been watching too much MacGyver.

Re:News?

[AviLazar]

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...