Apollo 13
Or, "Hanks meets Spielberg"
The following is a list of factual errors from the movie starring Tom Hanks. This is used with permission from the great John L. Hubisz, Physics Department, North Carolina State University.
- Jim Lovell's Corvette was blue, not red!!
- On Apollo 13, they had '72 Corvette amber turn lights!!
- The NASA, "worm" logo appears on a glass door. The
logo was not developed until 1976.
- An engineer checks an astronaut's addition using a slide rule.
Slide rules are not used for addition.
- Jim Lovell's license plate is new.
- The astronauts point out the Sea of Tranquility while on the dark side
of the Moon. It is on the other side.
- A technician at the Cape is wearing a Rockwell International logo on
his coveralls. The Apollo capsule was built by North American,
which did not become Rockwell International until after the Apollo
program.
- The gantry arms for the Saturn V are released in unison, not one at a
time.
- During entry, the spacecraft is shown hurtling directly at the
Earth. At that angle, it would punch a brief but fiery hole through
the atmosphere. It should be aiming toward the horizon.
- The paint pattern on the Saturn V is for the test configuration, not
the launch configuration.
- The astronauts look at their intended landing site while on the dark
side of the Moon. It is a good thing they did not land, as there
would be no chance at communications with Earth. In addition, it is
dark and very cold.
- In space, from outside the capsule, propulsion jets do not make any
noise.
- The priest in the movie is tall and thin and does not say much. He is actually short and plump, wears a toupee, and talks a lot.
"You may certainly use them, but they are not exclusively mine. By now they should be in the public domain. I have passed out various versions of them out to my students since the movie came out. Cite them as "Collected by a bunch of nit-pickers". I knew lots of folks at JSC and the observations pretty much came from them. The priest was my pastor.
Best wishes,
John"