Transcript

The Scene that Stayed with You: Apollo 13 and Duct Tape-The Magic Elixir · Off the Page

Tom Straw: I don't know if you ever saw Apollo 13 there was one shot in that movie that was genius. And that is when they have all of the engineers at NASA and they're in that room and they have a big table, and Ron Howard, who directed it, had an overhead camera shot of the table. And what they did is they plopped everything on that table that was up there in the capsule, and they said to themselves, We can only work with what we have here. And to me that was genius because it was dramatic, it was defining, it was expository, and it was a holy S moment. You know what I mean? K. R. Raye: I'm an actual mechanic mechanical engineer. And it's so funny that you said that because literally I at one point in my career I've worked for Jet Propulsion Laboratory. And so that scene stuck with me so much because you're only stuck with what they have up there. And if you cannot solve this, everybody dies. And it it's that is Tom Straw: And also with all the technology and you know more about it having been at JPL is it comes down to duct tape, you know what I mean? K. R. Raye: Yes. Du duct tape duct tape saves everything. It is the magic elixir that that works on everything. Tom Straw: And if it doesn't work, the only answer is more duct tape. K. R. Raye: More duct tape.