[HN Gopher] Ed Smylie, Who Saved the Apollo 13 Crew with Duct Ta...
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Ed Smylie, Who Saved the Apollo 13 Crew with Duct Tape, Dies at 95
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 95 points
Date : 2025-05-16 14:03 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://archive.today/lhIn7
|
| https://airandspace.si.edu/support/wall-of-honor/robert-ed-s...
|
| https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...
|
| https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2025/04/msu-remembe...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_13_Mailbox_at_Miss...
| aaron695 wrote:
| > 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/...
|
| "space-age baling wire" I think is velcro
| kube-system wrote:
| 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-...
|
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| +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.
| jkingsman wrote:
| > the tapiest tape to ever tape, "bi-filament tape"
|
| An excellent description. Fiberglass reinforced, adhesive
| that's closer to a resin than a tape adhesive. You can use
| it like it's cargo strapping -- around sharp corners, to
| reinforce things (product descriptions describe reinforcing
| steel drums with it), etc. -- wild stuff.
| robaato wrote:
| Somewhat related - remember having to try and source labels
| that we could stick on Sony Walkmans in an electronic repair
| shop - sticky enough to stay on reliably (customer name, ID
| etc), but able to be removed without residue! Took quite a
| few tries but we got there.
| fellerts wrote:
| You just clarified something I've unknowingly wondered about
| for years! Hardware stores here sell duct tape as you
| describe it, but it's commonly referred to as <<gaffer tape>>
| in my native tongue (Norwegian: gaffateip). I've never come
| across the cloth tape you describe, but I now realise it's
| not a skill issue when I can never seem to tear clean strips
| of the stuff. I'll keep my eyes open for proper <<gaffer's
| tape>> from now on.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Ha, I thought that duct tape _was_ gaffer tape (not a native
| speaker of English).
|
| I do not think there is a named for it in French, we call it
| the thick tape you can tear by hand :)
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| Did "duct" tape become the standard nomenclature at some point?
| I learned many years ago that "duck" really is the correct
| term, because the tape was originally made of cotton duck
| cloth.
|
| Lots of people assume that "duck" is actually the
| misunderstanding, and that it must be a slurring of "duct", but
| there's no history of using duck tape on ducts. It's the wrong
| tool for the job, and the wrong name for the material. I'm
| surprised to see that sources like the NYT and Wikipedia are
| using "duct tape" as the preferred term.
| jedbrooke wrote:
| there is also a pretty popular brand "Duck Brand" duct tape
| likely adding to the "duck vs duct" confusion
| kube-system wrote:
| And the company that started selling the tape for ducts and
| calling it "duct tape" is the corporate predecessor of that
| same company.
| kube-system wrote:
| > there's no history of using duck tape on ducts.
|
| There is. Post-WWII the tape was marketed and sold by the
| Melvin A. Anderson Company for air ducting.
|
| https://www.duckbrand.com/about
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > Lots of people assume that "duck" is actually the
| misunderstanding
|
| Present! Thanks for ruining my adulthood ;-)
| AshleyGrant wrote:
| If you ever have the opportunity, visit the Cosmosphere in
| Hutchinson, Kansas. They have the actual Apollo 13 Command Module
| on display.
| jebarker wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| They built the lobby around the SR-71. It's friggin' cool.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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~8~1~2... (EDIT: 1962 map shows the same: https://www.
| ksdot.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/4727/638724...)
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| And if you ever find yourself in Alamagordo, New Mexico, the NM
| Air and Space Museum is nice: 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.
| alex1138 wrote:
| https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...
| neilv wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This is the Hacker Newsiest comment I've ever read on Hacker
| News.
| neilv wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| lupusreal wrote:
| The one time when using duct tape on a duct was okay.
| delichon wrote:
| Ed Smylie was a steely-eyed missile man.
|
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/steely-eyed_missile_man
| somethoughts wrote:
| 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
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(page generated 2025-05-16 23:01 UTC)