
Hippie physics student saved Apollo 13, cut out of history cos he had long hair - ColinWright
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old_that_worked_apollo_missions_1/c5oaobm
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rst
Apollo 8, 10, and 11 had all already used "free return" trajectories, which
would have caused the spacecraft to "slingshot around the moon" and return to
earth in the case of main engine failure. Mission Control would not have
needed a cold call from a hippie physics student to remind them they could try
that with Apollo 13.

This could be a garbled version of some other piece of critical advice coming
in a cold call. But it's also possible that some hippie grad student _thought_
he came up with the idea of free return trajectories on the fly, and assumed
that long hair was the reason he never got credit for telling Mission Control
what it had already known for years.

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greenyoda
Since this story is being told by a NASA employee and not by the grad student,
it's not the grad student making assumptions about why he wasn't credited.

See also this follow-up comment that lends some credibility to this anecdote:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old_that_worked_apollo_missions_1/c5onsqb)

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GiraffeNecktie
Is there anything at all to substantiate this story other than an anonymous
blip on Reddit? Anything?

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ColinWright
Many a good investigation starts with a single, unsubstantiated piece of
information. It's certainly an interesting claim - perhaps it can and/or will
be chased down and appear one day on Snopes.

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tehdik
Is it really so hard to right because instead of cos?

~~~
ColinWright
It is when the full and proper title doesn't fit into the 80 character limit.

And in return, is it really so hard to write "write" instead of "right"?

