QDid Gene Krantz really say "failure is not an option"?
AAccording to Apollo 13 Flight Dynamics Officer Jerry Bostick, no. In preparation for the movie, the writers interviewed Bostick about the experience. One of their questions was "Weren't there times when everybody, or at least a few people, just panicked?" Bostick's answer was "No, when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them. We never panicked, and we never gave up on finding a solution." When the writers got in their car to leave, they immediately decided that "failure is not an option" would be the tagline for the movie. They then decided to give the line to Gene Krantz.
QWhat is 'Apollo 13' about?
AVeteran astronaut James Lovell (Tom Hanks), along with Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), are assigned to NASA's Apollo 13 mission with the goal of landing a man on the moon for the third time. On April 11, 1970, they are successfully launched. However, on the third day out, one of the two oxygen tanks in the Command module Odyssey explodes and the other is found to be leaking, forcing them to abort the mission and return to Earth. While the astronauts are forced to run on minimum systems to conserve power, Flight director Gene Krantz (Ed Harris), astronaut Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise), and the rest of the Mission Control team search for ways to keep the atmosphere breathable inside the Lunar Module Aquarius and help the astronauts conserve power. Meanwhile, the astronauts' wives and family as well as the entire world wait anxiously for their safe return.
QWhy did the ground team applaud when Gene Krantz puts on the vest? What did he receive the vest for?
AThe vest was made by Gene's wife, who makes him a new one every time he supervises a new space mission. If you listen closely while the box is being delivered to Gene, one of his crew remarks "Can't argue with tradition!". The ground crew are just giving Gene a friendly hard time over it, picking on him because his wife cares about him enough to sew for him each time. Also, it seems that Mrs Krantz took a bit longer to make this particular vest because you can hear Gene mutter "Thank you, Tom [the tech who brings Gene the box]. I was gettin' worried."
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