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 is Now history of historical spaceinvolving how to place a square plug on 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. Death came almost 55 years Until the day after he and his team discovered how to combine a space suit hose, a sock, a plastic bag, signal cards and adhesive tape to clean the air Astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert during his emergency trip back to Earth.
“I guess those were our 15 minutes of fame,” said Smylie in 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 probably 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 was technically known) had a cube 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 the 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 American Rockwell location, NASA’s contractor for the command module.” We found them at the end, rented an airplane: Grumman [NASA’s contractor for the lunar module] I guess a plane crazy, or in North 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 seize TK,” said Smylie, referring Thomas “Ken” MattinglyWho up to three days before the mission had been assigned to fly with Lovell and Haise, but was punished after being exposed to German measles. “Tk was busy doing other things, and he assigned [fellow astronaut] Tony England To work with us in the development of procedures to send to the crew on how to build this. “
Although the solution with jury sounded complex, Smylie said it was “quite simple.”
“Although we got a lot of advertising for it and [President Richard] Nixon even mentioned our names, I always argued that it was because that 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. Served in the Navy before Attend the Mississippi State Universitywhere he obtained his degree and Master in Mechanical Engineering in 1952 and 1956, respectively. A year later, he received 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 was a recipient of the La Libertad Presidential Medal and the great moments of Globalspec in the Engineering Award. 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 grandchildren and 15 great -grandchildren survive.
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