Apollo 13, a 1995 film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris. The movie tells the story of the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission and is an adaptation of the book "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13" by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. The film depicts astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise aboard Apollo 13 for America's third Moon landing mission.

The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 14:13 EST (19:13 UTC) from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the Service Module (SM) upon which the Command Module (CM) had depended. Through great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and a critical need to make makeshift repairs to the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17, 1970, six days after launching.

Apollo 13 Timeline: By Andrew Buck - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3820068

I had just turned 11 years old a few days before this launch occurred. Two doors down from my house in one direction, one of my friends father worked at Mission Control, he was never home for the duration of the flight. Two doors down and across the street in the other direction, a friends father was a Grumman Engineer. I remember several conversations between my father and him at our house during the evenings. We had the only color TV on the block and it was almost always on during this time.

Several years later, a friend from work's wife had a knock on their homes front door. It was Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. Stunned to see these two on her front door step, she was thrilled to learn that there was going to be a movie made and they were scouting locations. The house they lived in was originally designed and built by Jim Lovell. Lovell had a bit of Frank Lloyd Wright in him and the design of the house mirrored that. It was an amazing house, I'd visited them several times. In short, the house was too tight for film production and was never used. The early scene from the movie where Lovell is looking at the moon and talking with his wife about going to the moon, the backyard is almost identical to the real one.

Fast forward almost two decades, my wife was working for JSC Federal Credit Union in the marketing and development department. We were constantly going to dinners for local charities and Chambers of Commerce functions. I finally broke down and purchased two tuxedos to keep up with her. It was during this time, I met some of those engineers that designed the "Mailbox", the apparatus that allowed a square peg to fit into a round hole and filter the air of carbon dioxide thus keeping the astronauts alive for the return home.

I probably won't start this project in earnest until early 2019 since I have a few others in the works.

More to come...
James B

Fantastic post, James.
I was 5 years old when my grandfather took me in the back yard and told me to look at the moon. “There are very brave men up on that planet (sic) right now, lad”, he told me. This was in ‘69 when man mankind took one giant leap. I’ve have a love affair with the moon ever since.
I’m hoping you do us the pleasure of sharing a build log!

James, that just may be the best photo I’ve seen on iModeler. At that exact time I was in a back yard in Edinburgh. Amazing.

I have a pretty amazing book crammed full of unique photos of the original moon landing...

The plan when bought this book in ‘99 (30th anniversary) was to have a room with framed photos (see below) of the event and this post of yours has just reignited that project.

Thanks David @dirtylittlefokker, To be honest, it was quiet by accident. In 2014 I was fortunate enough to own a Nikon 800mm/5.6 lens with matched 1.25 converter. It was a dream lens. I had purchased the wife a new Nikon V1 system, Nikon's mirrorless system at the time and it came with an adapter that allowed normal Nikon lenses to be used with the diminutive new camera. Told that it would probably not work with my lens, I set out to prove the local dealer wrong. So what you are seeing here is 800mm lens + 1.25x, equaling a nice 1000mm lens length multiplied by a 2.7 factor of the camera sensor equating into a 2700mm lens shot. I was pretty pleased with the results.

Good luck on the interior decorating!

Anything NASA related always grabs my attention. I'm going to be watching this build for sure... 🙂

Back in the early 1990's, I actually worked at Cape Canaveral / Kennedy Space Center on launch pad 40.

They launched the Space Shuttle missions from launch pad 39, so on several occasions I was able to see them "walk" the shuttle out on the crawler, from the VAB (vertical assembly building) to launch pad. The mover creeps along at an average speed of 1 MPH ! Each track block on the mover weighs a ton... literally.

I was also very fortunate to see the shuttle returning back to the Cape, riding on top of the modified 747... which was in the landing pattern and flew BENEATH us as we were located high up on the tower of pad 40 at the time.

That was a sight to see...

On another occasion I was able to see the shuttle go up from the "Press" box... but that's another story.

Thanks for starting this build journal @jamesb ... count me in.

Paul @yellow10, Yes it was a beast of a lens, but not really that much more weight than a 600mm. Absolutely love that lens. Next to their 400/2.8, it's one of the sharpest telephotos out there. The past few years my shooting style has changed and I found that I was only using it maybe once a year so I sold it. Hard decision, but the price tag was worth it. Besides, Nikon will still loan me one on occasion or I can rent one for a weekend.

Louis @lgardner, glad to see you buddy. I figured after some of the conversations we have had you would be a little keen on this one.

Peter @tecko, good question. Since the model is no longer in production, details are scarce. Once the kit arrives I will know better.

Peter @tecko, I've got a couple of ideas. Leaning towards a permanent display piece. Probably won't come to fruition until I've got the model close to finish.