4 ms·

Ed Smylie, Who Saved the Apollo 13 Crew with Duct Tape, Dies at 95

116 points by sohkamyung 1y ago

AshleyGrant 1y ago
If you ever have the opportunity, visit the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. They have the actual Apollo 13 Command Module on display.
- jebarker 1y ago
  That place looks great - they appear to also have an SR-71. I wish I'd known about it last time I did the long drive through KS...
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    They built the lobby around the SR-71. It's friggin' cool.
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  FWIW I find it to be a much better museum than the more-famous one in Huntsville, AL. That one's badly run-down and is about 50% some kind of gross defense contractor permanent trade-show installation—though the blown-apart Saturn V they've got suspended in a hangar is notably amazing to see. The Cosmosphere's got a more impressive collection (though that Saturn V makes up a lot of ground for Huntsville) and the presentation is much better. There's an OK zoo (great, adjusting for where it is, really) nearby, worth a stop if you're there with kids anyway, but not much else I know of in the area. It's weird that there's such a good museum so far from everything, including from the most-traveled highway through-routes for the state.
  - strifey 1y ago
    Sad to hear about how much the Space & Rocket center has been let to deteriorate. That place really sparked my interest in science & engineering as a child. Even went to Space Camp there way back in the day.
    - alabastervlog 1y ago
      Yeah, I remember going as a kid (the Saturn V and "rocket garden" are what stuck with me and how I realized I'd been there before) and thinking it was great, but going again a couple years ago it was a huge let-down. So much of it was just ugly MIC sales powerpoint infographics with not-great accompanying displays of missiles and such, there was a whole area that seemed to just be a warfare drone military contractor showroom (which could be cool, but the presentation was about as boring as possible in this case), a bunch of the interactive bits were broken, most of the handful still working cost extra (and admission was not what I'd call cheap), and in general it just felt like a place struggling to survive. It gave an almost ex-Warsaw-Pact vibe of being well past its prime and decaying in place. The Saturn V is still amazing, though, but even there the little bit of the hangar floor and wall space that they actually bothered to use was given over to kinda-lame material about things like the SLS that also had a strong "this came straight from a contractor's marketing department" feeling. I'd also been to the Cosmosphere as a kid (the SR-71 in the lobby is how I recognized that one when I returned, haha, don't see that every day) and have been about three more times over the last 15 years, as an adult, and it's still great.
  - wahern 1y ago
    > It's weird that there's such a good museum so far from everything, including from the most-traveled highway through-routes for the state. It was built near the most-traveled highway through-route in Kansas, considering it was originally established in 1962. It's only a couple of miles from US-50. Much of US-50 aligns with the first transcontinental highway, the Lincoln Highway; and for much of the 20th century US-50 was one of the primary east-west highways. It looks like it currently skirts around Hutchinson, but I'd bet 50 years ago it passed directly through the middle of town, very close if not adjacent to the Cosmosphere.[1] The construction of I-70 in Kansas started in the mid 1950s, but didn't completely cross Kansas until 1970. And it would have taken decades for development patterns to shift from the US-50 corridor to the I-70 corridor. [1] At least as of 1939 it appears to pass directly through the downtown: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258626~5522103:Rand-McNally-Road-map--Kansas https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2... (EDIT: 1962 map shows the same: https://www.ksdot.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/4727/638724470842570000 https://www.ksdot.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/4727/638724...)
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  The National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, OH is also a must-visit, the primary focus is WWI-WII aircraft but they have many Space Race era artifacts as well. Neil Armstrong’s Museum in Wapakoneta, OH isn’t that much further away, but much smaller.
- indrora 1y ago
  And if you ever find yourself in Alamagordo, New Mexico, the NM Air and Space Museum is nice: https://nmspacemuseum.org/# https://nmspacemuseum.org/# They have, IIRC, one of the Gemini capsules, but also some really cool demonstrations. It is worth it to time that and one of the Trinity test site tours if you're interested in nuclear history as well, then take a trip north to Albuquerque for the Nat'l Nuclear History Museum and (for the kids and kidlike adults) Explora is a neat little hands on museum.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
https://archive.today/lhIn7 https://archive.today/lhIn7 https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/robert-ed-smylie https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/robert-ed-s... https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/SmylieRE/SmylieRE_4-17-99.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist... https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2025/04/msu-remembers-legacy-apollo-13-legend-alumnus-ed-smylie https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2025/04/msu-remembe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_13_Mailbox_at_Mission_Control.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_13_Mailbox_at_Miss...
aaron695 1y ago
> Duct Tape NASA says gray tape. You'll find some documents say duct tape, but here it was gray, transcript - https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.txt#:~:text=wire%20or%20the-,gray%20tape,-%3F%0A%0A080%3A37%3A51 https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/... "space-age baling wire" I think is velcro
- kube-system 1y ago
  Yes, that's what color the duct tape was. Gray. "good old-fashioned American gray tape" https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/duct-tape-auto-repair-moon https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/duct-tape-auto-... The tape and its many varieties have many names. "Duct tape" is commonly used today, but was not as common then, and wasn't in the dictionary until part way through the Apollo program.
- mrandish 1y ago
  For fans of "quick fix in a pinch" resources like duct tape, velcro, etc. There's another kind of tape that can be very useful: it's sometimes called 'Gaffer Tape' as it is used by Hollywood movie set gaffers (where time is literally money and everything must be temporary). It's a high-quality cloth tape with strong adhesive that generally won't leave residue when removed within 72 hours. It also (usually) won't strip off paint as long as it's removed carefully (not like ripping a band-aid). Due to the cloth weave pattern being square, the tape can be torn by hand horizontally or vertically into straight strips. Traditional gray duct tape is generally plastic coated and the adhesive will leave residue and take paint (and even wall texture) with it. I learned about gaffer tape working on sets decades ago and the all the experienced gaffers had a couple of rolls of it on a rope loop hanging off their tool belt. White for labeling stuff with a Sharpie, black for securing or hiding stuff that might be on camera. I've had a similar loop on my tool pouch ever since because it's so useful. It's sold a lot of places but quality can vary. Studio supply houses only sell the top grade stuff.
  - RangerScience 1y ago
    +1 gaffer tape. Related: if you want the tapiest tape to ever tape, "bi-filament tape". It's sticky as hell, cannot be torn, and you can get it in 12in (or wider!) rolls.
alex1138 1y ago
https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/SmylieRE/SmylieRE_4-17-99.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...
neilv 1y ago
Best startup engineers ever. As part of a race to do doing something previously impossible, they built the MVP, and when some random showstopper happened, they worked creatively within tight constraints, to succeed.
- gpcz 1y ago
  This is the Hacker Newsiest comment I've ever read on Hacker News.
  - neilv 1y ago
    Wait till you see how I appropriate NASA's greatness for my LinkedIn thought-leader post. (I'm typing the text into Photoshop right now, like a quote, with my name, over an image of me looking like an inspirational keynote speaker, in hopes that my LinkedIn post image will be shared rather than unattributed copypasta.)
    - dylan604 1y ago
      It'd be cooler if you were typing it into a prompt to allow genAI to make that slide deck for you. Photoshop is so 1990s old and busted with hand in pocket rent seeking subscription. We'll just ignore the subscription necessary to use genAI as that doesn't serve the purpose of the comment.
  - Rebelgecko 1y ago
    When I read the oral history linked in the obit I was surprised how scrappy/startup-y NASA was in the early days. Flying to Cape Canaveral and handing a technician a part you just made without any paperwork would probably not fly nowadays
- blitzar 1y ago
  They pivoted to duct tape
lupusreal 1y ago
The one time when using duct tape on a duct was okay.
delichon 1y ago
Ed Smylie was a steely-eyed missile man. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/steely-eyed_missile_man https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/steely-eyed_missile_man
somethoughts 1y ago
Clip of an interview with Ed Smylie by the Smithsonian Channel How Duct Tape Saved the Lives of the Apollo 13 Crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEM_IBUv70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEM_IBUv70

116 points by sohkamyung 1y ago

If you ever have the opportunity, visit the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. They have the actual Apollo 13 Command Module on display.

jebarker 1y ago
That place looks great - they appear to also have an SR-71. I wish I'd known about it last time I did the long drive through KS...
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  They built the lobby around the SR-71. It's friggin' cool.
alabastervlog 1y ago
FWIW I find it to be a much better museum than the more-famous one in Huntsville, AL. That one's badly run-down and is about 50% some kind of gross defense contractor permanent trade-show installation—though the blown-apart Saturn V they've got suspended in a hangar is notably amazing to see. The Cosmosphere's got a more impressive collection (though that Saturn V makes up a lot of ground for Huntsville) and the presentation is much better. There's an OK zoo (great, adjusting for where it is, really) nearby, worth a stop if you're there with kids anyway, but not much else I know of in the area. It's weird that there's such a good museum so far from everything, including from the most-traveled highway through-routes for the state.
- strifey 1y ago
  Sad to hear about how much the Space & Rocket center has been let to deteriorate. That place really sparked my interest in science & engineering as a child. Even went to Space Camp there way back in the day.
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    Yeah, I remember going as a kid (the Saturn V and "rocket garden" are what stuck with me and how I realized I'd been there before) and thinking it was great, but going again a couple years ago it was a huge let-down. So much of it was just ugly MIC sales powerpoint infographics with not-great accompanying displays of missiles and such, there was a whole area that seemed to just be a warfare drone military contractor showroom (which could be cool, but the presentation was about as boring as possible in this case), a bunch of the interactive bits were broken, most of the handful still working cost extra (and admission was not what I'd call cheap), and in general it just felt like a place struggling to survive. It gave an almost ex-Warsaw-Pact vibe of being well past its prime and decaying in place. The Saturn V is still amazing, though, but even there the little bit of the hangar floor and wall space that they actually bothered to use was given over to kinda-lame material about things like the SLS that also had a strong "this came straight from a contractor's marketing department" feeling. I'd also been to the Cosmosphere as a kid (the SR-71 in the lobby is how I recognized that one when I returned, haha, don't see that every day) and have been about three more times over the last 15 years, as an adult, and it's still great.
- wahern 1y ago
  > It's weird that there's such a good museum so far from everything, including from the most-traveled highway through-routes for the state. It was built near the most-traveled highway through-route in Kansas, considering it was originally established in 1962. It's only a couple of miles from US-50. Much of US-50 aligns with the first transcontinental highway, the Lincoln Highway; and for much of the 20th century US-50 was one of the primary east-west highways. It looks like it currently skirts around Hutchinson, but I'd bet 50 years ago it passed directly through the middle of town, very close if not adjacent to the Cosmosphere.[1] The construction of I-70 in Kansas started in the mid 1950s, but didn't completely cross Kansas until 1970. And it would have taken decades for development patterns to shift from the US-50 corridor to the I-70 corridor. [1] At least as of 1939 it appears to pass directly through the downtown: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~258626~5522103:Rand-McNally-Road-map--Kansas https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~2... (EDIT: 1962 map shows the same: https://www.ksdot.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/4727/638724470842570000 https://www.ksdot.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/4727/638724...)
TimorousBestie 1y ago
The National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, OH is also a must-visit, the primary focus is WWI-WII aircraft but they have many Space Race era artifacts as well. Neil Armstrong’s Museum in Wapakoneta, OH isn’t that much further away, but much smaller.
indrora 1y ago
And if you ever find yourself in Alamagordo, New Mexico, the NM Air and Space Museum is nice: https://nmspacemuseum.org/# https://nmspacemuseum.org/# They have, IIRC, one of the Gemini capsules, but also some really cool demonstrations. It is worth it to time that and one of the Trinity test site tours if you're interested in nuclear history as well, then take a trip north to Albuquerque for the Nat'l Nuclear History Museum and (for the kids and kidlike adults) Explora is a neat little hands on museum.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

https://archive.today/lhIn7 https://archive.today/lhIn7 https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/robert-ed-smylie https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/robert-ed-s... https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/SmylieRE/SmylieRE_4-17-99.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist... https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2025/04/msu-remembers-legacy-apollo-13-legend-alumnus-ed-smylie https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2025/04/msu-remembe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_13_Mailbox_at_Mission_Control.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_13_Mailbox_at_Miss...

aaron695 1y ago

> Duct Tape NASA says gray tape. You'll find some documents say duct tape, but here it was gray, transcript - https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.txt#:~:text=wire%20or%20the-,gray%20tape,-%3F%0A%0A080%3A37%3A51 https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/static/history/alsj/... "space-age baling wire" I think is velcro

kube-system 1y ago
Yes, that's what color the duct tape was. Gray. "good old-fashioned American gray tape" https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/duct-tape-auto-repair-moon https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/duct-tape-auto-... The tape and its many varieties have many names. "Duct tape" is commonly used today, but was not as common then, and wasn't in the dictionary until part way through the Apollo program.
mrandish 1y ago
For fans of "quick fix in a pinch" resources like duct tape, velcro, etc. There's another kind of tape that can be very useful: it's sometimes called 'Gaffer Tape' as it is used by Hollywood movie set gaffers (where time is literally money and everything must be temporary). It's a high-quality cloth tape with strong adhesive that generally won't leave residue when removed within 72 hours. It also (usually) won't strip off paint as long as it's removed carefully (not like ripping a band-aid). Due to the cloth weave pattern being square, the tape can be torn by hand horizontally or vertically into straight strips. Traditional gray duct tape is generally plastic coated and the adhesive will leave residue and take paint (and even wall texture) with it. I learned about gaffer tape working on sets decades ago and the all the experienced gaffers had a couple of rolls of it on a rope loop hanging off their tool belt. White for labeling stuff with a Sharpie, black for securing or hiding stuff that might be on camera. I've had a similar loop on my tool pouch ever since because it's so useful. It's sold a lot of places but quality can vary. Studio supply houses only sell the top grade stuff.
- RangerScience 1y ago
  +1 gaffer tape. Related: if you want the tapiest tape to ever tape, "bi-filament tape". It's sticky as hell, cannot be torn, and you can get it in 12in (or wider!) rolls.

alex1138 1y ago

https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/SmylieRE/SmylieRE_4-17-99.htm https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...

neilv 1y ago

Best startup engineers ever. As part of a race to do doing something previously impossible, they built the MVP, and when some random showstopper happened, they worked creatively within tight constraints, to succeed.

gpcz 1y ago
This is the Hacker Newsiest comment I've ever read on Hacker News.
- neilv 1y ago
  Wait till you see how I appropriate NASA's greatness for my LinkedIn thought-leader post. (I'm typing the text into Photoshop right now, like a quote, with my name, over an image of me looking like an inspirational keynote speaker, in hopes that my LinkedIn post image will be shared rather than unattributed copypasta.)
  - dylan604 1y ago
    It'd be cooler if you were typing it into a prompt to allow genAI to make that slide deck for you. Photoshop is so 1990s old and busted with hand in pocket rent seeking subscription. We'll just ignore the subscription necessary to use genAI as that doesn't serve the purpose of the comment.
- Rebelgecko 1y ago
  When I read the oral history linked in the obit I was surprised how scrappy/startup-y NASA was in the early days. Flying to Cape Canaveral and handing a technician a part you just made without any paperwork would probably not fly nowadays
blitzar 1y ago
They pivoted to duct tape

lupusreal 1y ago

The one time when using duct tape on a duct was okay.

delichon 1y ago

Ed Smylie was a steely-eyed missile man. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/steely-eyed_missile_man https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/steely-eyed_missile_man

somethoughts 1y ago

Clip of an interview with Ed Smylie by the Smithsonian Channel How Duct Tape Saved the Lives of the Apollo 13 Crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEM_IBUv70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeEM_IBUv70