5 ms·

Apollo 13: the Towing Invoice (2007)

128 points by privong 9y ago

overcast 9y ago
Classic.
nielsbot 9y ago
Pretty sure `???` on line 2 is `KWH` or kilowatt-hours
- FabHK 9y ago
  Nice. `kWh` would be correct, I'd think, but it does look like `KWH`.
bigtimber 9y ago
Yes, the ??? on line 2 is KWH. You can see this clearly at: https://historical.ha.com/itm/explorers/space-exploration/apollo-13-an-original-typed-copy-of-the-legendary-towing-bill-sent-to-north-american-rockwell-by-grumman-signed-by-both-jame/a/6129-52241.s https://historical.ha.com/itm/explorers/space-exploration/ap...
monocasa 9y ago
I've heard on the grapevine here in Boulder that Apollo 13's infamous tank, when being transferred between Beech Aircraft and Rockwell, was dropped about a foot. Beech Aircraft wanted to scrap the whole tank and red tagged it, but were overruled by project managers at NASA since they couldn't point to anything wrong in some tests of the tank.
- katastic 9y ago
  https://www.space.com/8193-caused-apollo-13-accident.html https://www.space.com/8193-caused-apollo-13-accident.html >In October 1968, the Number 2 tank eventually used on Apollo 13 was at the North American Aviation plant in Downey, California. There, technicians who were handling the tank accidentally dropped it about two inches. After testing the tank, they concluded the incident hadn't caused any detectable damage. >The dropped tank was eventually cleared for flight and installed in Apollo 13. The tank passed all of its routine prelaunch tests. But at the end of March 1970, after a practice session called the Countdown Demonstration Test, ground crews tried to empty the tank -- and couldn’t. >The small tube used to fill and empty the tank of its super-cold contents had been damaged by the mishandling almost two years earlier. Looks like it was two problems that came together. The heating insulation / voltage-change oversight wouldn't have triggered unless they also had to work around the jammed pipe.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    That's more or less consistent with what I've heard, with the added part that the Beech Aircraft engineers who designed the thing never wanted it to make it's way into a spacecraft. Their opinion was there was no way to certify the thing again; it wasn't designed to be serviced, so NASA would just have to wait for the next tank and delay the Apollo program. The stupid hacks all pointed to finding existing damage from the drop that had been missed when NASA's engineers tried to re-cert the tank that Beech wouldn't. But hey PMs feeling pressure on timelines will ignore engineers' recommendations, roll the dice and just push to prod anyway. And find some engineers who'll back them up who had nothing to do with the original design. Some things never change.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Seems very similar to why Challenger blew up as well. Engineers felt unease about launching in such cold weather, but management rammed approval through.
      - gknoy 9y ago
        I read a really interesting article on this in my undergraduate software engineering course (an excerpt from Tufte's excellent "Visual Explanations" book dealing with the shuttle Challenger mishap). The main takeaway was not that it was malicious management, but rather that the _way the information was portrayed_ (slides) did a remarkably poor job of showing the relationship between temperature and booster failure. No one showed management a graph of, _"Here's a chart of failures vs temperature, and this is how cold is is today ..."_ Looking at the memos and slides that were presented up the chain, it's not very surprising that the correlation between temperature and failure was lost on its way up the bureaucracy.
        LeifCarrotson 9y ago
        Engineering says "This is a bad idea". Management says "We want this regardless." The problem is not that the engineers didn't convey what they wanted to say clearly, it's that management did not want to listen.
- acranox 9y ago
  Ars has a great article on this. https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/apollo-13-the-mistakes-the-explosion-and-six-hours-of-live-saving-decisions/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/apollo-13-the-mistak...
ben1040 9y ago
https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/627895978796916736 https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/627895978796916736? See also, the joke "customs declaration" filed by the Apollo 11 astronauts.
cyberferret 9y ago
I love hearing about these sorts of invoices between agencies and armed services etc. I guess it is the equivalent of macabre dark humour used by emergency service personnel and medical staff - a way to cope with the daily stress and trials of the job. Many decades ago, the US Air Force donated a B-52 to our local aviation museum. There were some issues around 'procurement of foreign military equipment' and import laws, I believe, so to get around that, the US had to issue an invoice to Australia to formalise the purchase of the aircraft. Proudly displayed in a glass case next under the nose of the huge bomber is an official US Dept. of Defence invoice. Total value $1.00 for the plane.
twic 9y ago
I'm not sure why this link is to an archive of an ancient Geocities site, given that there are a number of copies of this around. Here's the text (although the image link is broken): https://everything2.com/title/Apollo+13+towing+bill https://everything2.com/title/Apollo+13+towing+bill The only thing i didn't understand was the "modified American plan", which apparently means they only got two meals a day: http://www.happy-journey.com/demystifying-hotel-plans-ap-vs-map-vs-cp-vs-ep/204 http://www.happy-journey.com/demystifying-hotel-plans-ap-vs-...

128 points by privong 9y ago

overcast 9y ago

Classic.

nielsbot 9y ago

Pretty sure `???` on line 2 is `KWH` or kilowatt-hours

FabHK 9y ago
Nice. `kWh` would be correct, I'd think, but it does look like `KWH`.

bigtimber 9y ago

Yes, the ??? on line 2 is KWH. You can see this clearly at: https://historical.ha.com/itm/explorers/space-exploration/apollo-13-an-original-typed-copy-of-the-legendary-towing-bill-sent-to-north-american-rockwell-by-grumman-signed-by-both-jame/a/6129-52241.s https://historical.ha.com/itm/explorers/space-exploration/ap...

monocasa 9y ago

I've heard on the grapevine here in Boulder that Apollo 13's infamous tank, when being transferred between Beech Aircraft and Rockwell, was dropped about a foot. Beech Aircraft wanted to scrap the whole tank and red tagged it, but were overruled by project managers at NASA since they couldn't point to anything wrong in some tests of the tank.

katastic 9y ago
https://www.space.com/8193-caused-apollo-13-accident.html https://www.space.com/8193-caused-apollo-13-accident.html >In October 1968, the Number 2 tank eventually used on Apollo 13 was at the North American Aviation plant in Downey, California. There, technicians who were handling the tank accidentally dropped it about two inches. After testing the tank, they concluded the incident hadn't caused any detectable damage. >The dropped tank was eventually cleared for flight and installed in Apollo 13. The tank passed all of its routine prelaunch tests. But at the end of March 1970, after a practice session called the Countdown Demonstration Test, ground crews tried to empty the tank -- and couldn’t. >The small tube used to fill and empty the tank of its super-cold contents had been damaged by the mishandling almost two years earlier. Looks like it was two problems that came together. The heating insulation / voltage-change oversight wouldn't have triggered unless they also had to work around the jammed pipe.
- monocasa 9y ago
  That's more or less consistent with what I've heard, with the added part that the Beech Aircraft engineers who designed the thing never wanted it to make it's way into a spacecraft. Their opinion was there was no way to certify the thing again; it wasn't designed to be serviced, so NASA would just have to wait for the next tank and delay the Apollo program. The stupid hacks all pointed to finding existing damage from the drop that had been missed when NASA's engineers tried to re-cert the tank that Beech wouldn't. But hey PMs feeling pressure on timelines will ignore engineers' recommendations, roll the dice and just push to prod anyway. And find some engineers who'll back them up who had nothing to do with the original design. Some things never change.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Seems very similar to why Challenger blew up as well. Engineers felt unease about launching in such cold weather, but management rammed approval through.
    - gknoy 9y ago
      I read a really interesting article on this in my undergraduate software engineering course (an excerpt from Tufte's excellent "Visual Explanations" book dealing with the shuttle Challenger mishap). The main takeaway was not that it was malicious management, but rather that the _way the information was portrayed_ (slides) did a remarkably poor job of showing the relationship between temperature and booster failure. No one showed management a graph of, _"Here's a chart of failures vs temperature, and this is how cold is is today ..."_ Looking at the memos and slides that were presented up the chain, it's not very surprising that the correlation between temperature and failure was lost on its way up the bureaucracy.
      - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
        Engineering says "This is a bad idea". Management says "We want this regardless." The problem is not that the engineers didn't convey what they wanted to say clearly, it's that management did not want to listen.
acranox 9y ago
Ars has a great article on this. https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/apollo-13-the-mistakes-the-explosion-and-six-hours-of-live-saving-decisions/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/apollo-13-the-mistak...

ben1040 9y ago

https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/627895978796916736 https://twitter.com/TheRealBuzz/status/627895978796916736? See also, the joke "customs declaration" filed by the Apollo 11 astronauts.

cyberferret 9y ago

I love hearing about these sorts of invoices between agencies and armed services etc. I guess it is the equivalent of macabre dark humour used by emergency service personnel and medical staff - a way to cope with the daily stress and trials of the job. Many decades ago, the US Air Force donated a B-52 to our local aviation museum. There were some issues around 'procurement of foreign military equipment' and import laws, I believe, so to get around that, the US had to issue an invoice to Australia to formalise the purchase of the aircraft. Proudly displayed in a glass case next under the nose of the huge bomber is an official US Dept. of Defence invoice. Total value $1.00 for the plane.

twic 9y ago

I'm not sure why this link is to an archive of an ancient Geocities site, given that there are a number of copies of this around. Here's the text (although the image link is broken): https://everything2.com/title/Apollo+13+towing+bill https://everything2.com/title/Apollo+13+towing+bill The only thing i didn't understand was the "modified American plan", which apparently means they only got two meals a day: http://www.happy-journey.com/demystifying-hotel-plans-ap-vs-map-vs-cp-vs-ep/204 http://www.happy-journey.com/demystifying-hotel-plans-ap-vs-...