It was approximately one in the morning, four hours after an explosion crossed the Apollo 13 spacecraft on its way to the moon, when Ed Smylie realized that they had to do something about carbon dioxide. What happened next now is the history of the historical space, which implies how to place a square plug in a round hole.
Smylie, who was head of the NASA crew systems division at that time, died on April 21, 2025, at the age of 95. His death occurred almost 55 years after the day after he and his team discovered how to combine a space hose, a fox, a plastic bag, a duct tape to clean the air of astronauts Jim Lovell, it was learned and Jack Swigert Duration its emergency cards.
“I think those were our 15 minutes of fame,” Smylie said in a 1999 interview with a NASA historian. “If you read the book and look at the movie [“Apollo 13”]It seems that I did all that. I returned and looked at the list of people I identified were involved, and there were probable 60 people involved in one way or another. “
The concern was that the carbon dioxide that astronauts be exhaled would reach concentrations high enough to be mortal if they were not cleaned from the air.
Related: Apollo 13: Acts on the Moon mission close to NASA disasters
The Apollo spacecraft had two areas where the crew lived, and each one was built by different contractors. Within the command module, the carbon dioxide treatment plant (or lithium hydroxide container, as technically knew) had a bucket shape. In the lunar module, which in Apollo 13 served as a lifeboat of the crew, the treatment plant was cylindrical.
Initially, Smylie thought that the solution could be as simple as continuing the purifiers in the command module and running hoses to redirect their clean air escape in the lunar module. That would have worked, if the command module is not necessary to close to reserve energy for the re -entry to the atmosphere (only the command module was designed to return to the intact earth).
After working with others to find the basic concept, Smylie and his team needed to make sure it would work.
“I called Downey and Kennedy [Space Center] And he asked that some boats be sent so that we could try that, “said Smylie, referring to the North America Rockwell location, NASA’s contractor for the command module.” We found a topic at the end, we rent a plane – Grumman [NASA’s contractor for the lunar module] I guess a plane, I suppose, or northern America, and flew them, and we had them that afternoon. “
After learning that his improvised solution worked as planned, they had to find how to tell Apollo 13 Crew how to build the so -called “mailbox” in space.
“We seized TK,” said Smylie, referring to Thomas “Ken” Mattingly, who up to three days before the mission had ordered the leg to fly with Lovell and Haise, but was punished after being exhibited to German measles. “Tk was busy doing other things, and he assigned [fellow astronaut] Tony England will work with us in the development of procedures to send to the crew on how to build this. “
Althegh, the jury solution sounded complex, Smylie said it was “quite simple.”
“Just although we have a lot of advertising and [President Richard] Nixon even mentioned our names, I always argued that it was because it was one [problem] You could understand. No one really understood the difficult things they were doing. Everyone could understand a filter, “he said.
Robert Edwin “Ed” Smylie was born on December 25, 1929 on the farm of his grandparents in Lincoln County, Mississippi. He served in the Navy before attending the Mississippi State University, where he obtained his degree and mastery in mechanical engineering in 1952 and 1956, respectively. A year later, he recovered his mastery in MIT administration.
He was hired as an engineer by Douglas Aircraft Company (today, Boeing), working at the DC-8 jetliner, as well as how supersonic transports will rise and maintain thermal control for the Skybolt missile. He joined NASA in 1962 as head of the Live Systems Section and then head of the Environmental Control Systems Branch at the Spacecraft Tripned Center (today, Johnson Space Center) in Houston.
For more than a decade since 1962, Smylie served as assistant to Chief of Support, interim chief and then head of the crew systems division. In 1973, he moved to Washington, DC, where at the NASA headquarters he was the associate administrator attached to aeronautics and space technology, followed by an interim associate administrator and then associated administrator for spatial monitoring and data systems.
Smylie concluded his 18 years with NASA as deputy director and interim director of the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. After leaving NASA, Smylie occupied executive positions with RCA, General Electric, Grumman and Miter Corporation.
For its service to the space program, and in particular its role in saving the Crew of Apollo 13, Smylie received the presidential medal of La Libertad and the great moments in Engineering of Globalspec. He was also presented with the NASA exceptional service medal, the distinguished service medal and the exceptional leadership medal.
Smylie was preceded in death by his wife for 41 years, Carolyn, his brother John, a stepson and his ex -wife, June. Three children, the two children of Carolyn, 12 granddaughters and 15 great -grandparents survive.
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