Ed Smylie, Who Saved the Apollo 13 Crew with Duct Tape, Dies at 95

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

+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.

robaato• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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 :)

allknowingfrog2• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

there is also a pretty popular brand “Duck Brand” duct tape likely adding to the “duck vs duct” confusion

kube-system3• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

Lots of people assume that "duck" is actually the misunderstanding

Present! Thanks for ruining my adulthood ;-)

AshleyGrant• 1 year ago

If you ever have the opportunity, visit the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. They have the actual Apollo 13 Command Module on display.

jebarker• 1 year ago

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...

alabastervlog3• 1 year ago

They built the lobby around the SR-71. It's friggin' cool.

alabastervlog3• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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.

wahern• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/hist...

neilv2• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

This is the Hacker Newsiest comment I've ever read on Hacker News.

neilv2• 1 year ago

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.)

Rebelgecko• 1 year ago

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

blitzar• 1 year ago

They pivoted to duct tape

lupusreal• 1 year ago

The one time when using duct tape on a duct was okay.

delichon• 1 year ago

Ed Smylie was a steely-eyed missile man.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/steely-eyed_missile_man

somethoughts• 1 year ago

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

Ed Smylie, Who Saved the Apollo 13 Crew with Duct Tape, Dies at 95

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