Ed Smylie obituary - engineer turned Apollo 13 hero

[Arjen]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/science/space/ed-smylie-dead.html

Ed Smylie, the NASA official who led a team of engineers that cobbled together an apparatus made of cardboard, plastic bags and duct tape that saved the Apollo 13 crew in 1970 after an explosion crippled the spacecraft as it sped toward the moon, died on April 21 in Crossville, Tenn. He was 95.

His death, in a hospice facility, was confirmed by his son, Steven.

The day after the astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise returned to earth on April 17, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon awarded NASA’s mission operations team the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In his remarks, he singled out Mr. Smylie and his deputy, James V. Correale.

“They are men whose names simply represent the whole team,” President Nixon said at a ceremony at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. “And they had a jerry-built operation which worked, and had that not occurred, these men would not have gotten back.”
[...]
In reality, the engineers printed a supply list of the equipment that was onboard. Their ingenious solution: an adapter made of two lithium hydroxide canisters from the command module, plastic bags used for garments, cardboard from the cover of the flight plan, a spacesuit hose and a roll of gray duct tape.

“If you’re a Southern boy, if it moves and it’s not supposed to, you use duct tape,” Mr. Smylie said in the documentary. “That’s where we were. We had duct tape, and we had to tape it in a way that we could hook the environmental control system hose to the command module canister.”

More at the link.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Ad Astra.

Rest In Peace.

 

[archipeppe]

Godspeed Ed...
He was well portrayed in the Apollo 13 movie blockbuster.