Will We Ever Know the True Story On Apollo 13?
Jim Lovell’s book reads like an account of the movie Apollo 13 rather than a story of the actual event he participated in. Some of the science in the book is flawed and some of it ranks as absurd. In other areas the documenting of dialogue exchanges between the Apollo 13 astronauts and Mission Control are provably false. I am at a loss to explain why this was done since Lovell and co-writer Jeffrey Kluger are supposed to be telling us the truth. There are enough voices crying “fake” regarding the moon landings as-is and this book’s flaws just adds more reasons for their theories.
Center of gravity in no gravity…
Shortly after the fuel cells blew the Command Service Module (CSM) and Lunar Landing Module (LM) were thrown out of wrack. The attitude control was thrown off and Jim Lovell’s job was to get the trajectory to conform to the flight path, which he accomplished after some difficulty.
On page 148 in Lovell’s book it is stated that the added “weight” of the command module, coming in at 63,400 pounds, was causing the problem. It was actually stated that the attached CSM's weight which was throwing off “the center of gravity” of the ships. Is there a center of gravity in no gravity? Of course not! Everything weighs nothing. And how did the CSM suddenly gain weight in zero G? Please note this is not an issue on a normal mission when the CSM is in control and LM is docked and not being used to transit to the moon.
All of this is patently absurd. Co-author Jeffrey Kluger, an otherwise good science writer obsoletely failed the readers with this nonsense. It should also be noted in NASA’s Apollo 13 Mission Report, that none of this was ever mentioned regarding weight throwing off the guidance system. I am surprised Jim Lovell let this go through, or anything such as this, is written in a serious book on this near fatal disaster. After all, this book is a reprint of Lost Moon, originally published in the 1994, and this flaw, with a host of others, is in that book as well. There clearly was enough time to correct this.
And to go even further, it is stated on page 225 that the added weight of the CSM was checked out in the flight simulator by two astronauts to see if it would effect the guidance system. No problems found. Of course not! The very idea that they would be doing a test in a simulator when they have to know the CSM weighs nothing in zero gravity, is astonishing.
(Also, the LM’s weight is never noted. It was still weightless? Of course it was as the CSM had to be.)
(None of this reported CSM weight issue is mentioned in NASA technical reports such as the Apollo 13 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Challenges report, Apollo 13 Mission Report, and the Apollo 13 Flight Journal transcripts. Links below.)
Pulling the bio-med sensors
Jim Lovell’s irritation with his biomed sensors and the removal of them made for a fine dramatic effect in the Apollo 13 movie, when actor Tom Hanks in the role of Lovell, ripped his off.
However, it made for the worst part the book because the incident is falsely presented with an invented conversation between Lovell and mission control that never happened. As the book describes, after Lovell removed the biomeds he was concerned that he would get a lecture by flight controller Vance Brand who supposedly knew he had done this. He was not reprimanded but was told to turn off his biomedical transmission switch. The fact is, this conversation is not recorded in Apollo Flight Journal transcript. According to the transcript, Lovell was told by flight controller Joseph Kerwin to turn off the biomed switch in the LM to conserve power. Nothing more. Also, The Apollo 13 Flight Journal, states that once the CM was powered down, all biomed data from the astronauts was no longer being transmitted to NASA. Brand, if he had actually talked to Lovell would have known this and would not have been able to detect that Lovell’s sensors had been removed. Besides, at that point, the astronauts were not plugged in to any ports to upload the data. However, they might have had wireless data transmission since the sensors were connect to the biomes belt the astronauts wore. But this is unclear in any NASA documentation available. It is clear that to communicate with ground control, they had to be plugged in via a comm cable.
So, the incident as reported by Lovell and Kruger is false, according to NASA’s official transcript. It is unknown why they would bear a false witness regarding this incident.
Even the official report features odd flaws
Just as Lowell’s book features constant references to measurements based on pounds, so does the Apollo 13 Mission Report. For example, it is stated on page 5-11, that 55 pounds of propellent was used for third stage buster separation. On page 5-13, before the command module was shut down, 14 pounds of water were transferred from the CM to the LM. Overall, some thirteen pages of the report reference pounds as a measuring system.
I am surprised that in an official report such as this, the use of “pounds” being used as a unit of measurement while in zero gravity. In zero G, how would they know the exact weight say, of water in a tank? How did they measure 14 pounds of water in zero G? There is no gravity, hence no weight. In my research, I have yet to find an answer for this. I don’t see this questioned anywhere. I also don’t know why the moon Hoaxer crowd hasn’t jumped on this as evidence of fakery. After all, the only place pounds could be measured would be on a sound stage in Earth.
Even one of the electronic schematics is wrong, showing an output component with no input listed. There would be no output without an input.
Question
Why are none of of the reviewers of this book on Amazon catching any of this?
Will we ever know what happened?
Overall, Apollo 13 reads like a dumbed down account of what happened aboard this doomed ship. Too much dramatic license is taken to the point of making things up. It’s an insult to the brave men who nearly lost their lives, and to the superb group of technicians and engineers that helped bring them home safely.
The public which paid for the space program deserves the truth.
Sources
Apollo 13, Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger
https://www.amazon.com/Apollo-13-Jim-Lovell/dp/0618619585/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Jim+lovell&qid=1552480406&s=gateway&sr=8-2
Apollo 13 transcript, Biomeds
The Apollo 13 Flight Journal
Apollo 13 Mission Report
Apollo 13 Guidance, Navigation, and Control Challenges, John L. Goodman
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090026451.pdf
