14 Seconds on the Snoopy (not 39 Seconds!)

[TexasMather]

I was recently pondering the 14 seconds on the dial of the Snoopy 45th (my personal favorite of the Snoopy watches), and I remembered that the movie Apollo 13 showed the astronauts timing a 39 second manual burn to correct the trajectory on their way back to Earth. What really happened? Was it 14 or 39 seconds?


Like any reasonable mouth breathing internet troll with no access to legitimate data, I turned to Wikipedia for the answer! According to that all-knowing oracle, multiple midcourse corrections were performed and the famous 14 second burn occurred at flight time of 105 hours 18min 28sec.



So it would seem the movie Apollo 13 just completely fabricated the 39 second time duration? Perhaps they consolidated multiple burns into a single 39 second burn? Why would they do that? It remains unclear to me. Perhaps you know the answer?

Bonus item for those that read this far!
You have undoubtedly noticed sleepy Snoopy's thought balloon phrase "Failure is not an option" on the dial.


Well it turns out this phrase is attributed to flight director Gene Kranz, but guess what.....he didn't say that back in 1970! He only kind of said something similar in 1995 while being interviewed by the screenwriters for the Apollo 13 film. According to the keeper of internet knowledge, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_is_not_an_option ,


I find that a bit disappointing, but nonetheless still inspiring and consider the phrase worthy of inclusion on the watch since Kranz himself did essentially say something close.

To wrap up, I wish Omega would have made more of these (only 1,970 created, designating the year Apollo 13 flew). I love the 14 seconds marked on the dial, I think it's brilliant and wish I'd nabbed one of these when they were available.

Edited: Dec 5, 2023

 

[Dan S]

This is still available.

 

[TexasMather]

Dan S

This is still available.

I like it!

 

[Cenzo]

All sorts of fun NASA stuff online
https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap13fj/19day5-themanualcoursecorrection.html
at 104:35:53
PAO - The CapCom on that call was Jack Lousma. We passed up the PAD for this midcourse correction. The time 105 hours, 30 minutes elapsed. Delta velocity 7.8 feet per second. A burn time of 15 seconds with the notation to shut down the engine manually at 14 seconds.

 

[Wooden_spoon]

Great post, thanks

 

[hen]

Maybe 39 seconds gives more suspense to the film than 14 sec? Its probably played out over 5-10 minutes in the film and 14 s would be too short a time span. Neither movies nor watches are historical documents. (oh my, just call me captain obvious)

 

[TLIGuy]

Chalk it all up to movie making and creating tension and drama. There were plenty of creative liberties taken to add more drama and the engine firing scene is one of them. Fred Haise has talked about that scene before.

First, you are correct, there was never a 39 second engine burn. Where that comes from, who knows. Second, Haise has said that during any of the course correction burns there was never the wild ride you see in the movie. The rolling and rocking all over the place was to add drama to the scene. The engine burns were very smooth. Slow acceleration to the required thrust setting, minor pitch, yaw and roll corrections, then engine cut off.

There were 4 burns after the explosion:

Second midcourse correction - 35 seconds (Return to free-return trajectory)
Trans-Earth injection - 5 minutes to speed up the return home
Third midcourse correction - 14 seconds (Famous Speedmaster burn)
Fourth midcourse correction - 23 seconds

Here is a great short synopsis of the mission and engine burns. Oddly, the 14 second burn is not even mentioned in the NASA summary.

I discussed these burns extensively with Fred when we worked on the piece he signed for my collection. Without a doubt the 14 second burn was important, for Omega, but the free-return trajectory burn was the most important. Without that burn the crew never comes back around the moon and the 14 second correction burn would never have been needed.

Edited: Dec 6, 2023

 

[TexasMather]

TLIGuy

Chalk it all up to movie making and creating tension and drama. There were plenty of creative liberties taken to add more drama and the engine firing scene is one of them. Fred Haise has talked about that scene before.

First, you are correct, there was never a 39 second engine burn. Where that comes from, who knows. Second, Haise has said that during any of the course correction burns there was never the wild ride you see in the movie. The rolling and rocking all over the place was to add drama to the scene. The engine burns were very smooth. Slow acceleration to the required thrust setting, minor pitch, yaw and roll corrections, then engine cut off.

There were 4 burns after the explosion:

Second midcourse correction - 35 seconds (Return to free-return trajectory)
Trans-Earth injection - 5 minutes to speed up the return home
Third midcourse correction - 14 seconds (Famous Speedmaster burn)
Fourth midcourse correction - 23 seconds

Here is a great short synopsis of the mission and engine burns. Oddly, the 14 second burn is not even mentioned in the NASA summary.

I discussed these burns extensively with Fred when we worked on the piece he signed for my collection. Without a doubt the 14 second burn was important, for Omega, but the free-return trajectory burn was the most important. Without that burn the crew never comes back around the moon and the 14 second correction burn would never have been needed.

Thank you for the great reply! It makes intuitive sense that the earlier burns would be the most important, since they have longest time and distance to affect the trajectory. That's awesome that you have a signed Speedy from Fred Haise! Very very cool!

Fun fact: Fred Haise, along with Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell, hold the record for the furthest distance ever traveled away from Earth during their orbit of the dark side of the moon during Apollo 13!

Edited: Dec 6, 2023

 

[ninman]

OK, how did they time the other 3 burns without the Speedmaster? Why use the Speedmaster on the third burn if they didn't need it for the other 3?

 

[Evitzee]

Over 15,000 Silver Snoopy awards have been made by NASA over the years so they aren't super rare. Not surprising that Omega got one for their support of the manned space effort, if not for A13 they would probably have received one anyway. They have profited handsomely from it over the years through clever marketing and branding which was not the intention of the award. The idea that Omega was overly responsible for getting the astronauts back home via the 14 second burn was/is a myth. But it plays well with watch buyers.

 

[TLIGuy]

This 100%...

Evitzee

The idea that Omega was overly responsible for getting the astronauts back home via the 14 second burn was/is a myth.

That's why I wrote this....

TLIGuy

Without a doubt the 14 second burn was important, for Omega, but the free-return trajectory burn was the most important.

Edited: Dec 7, 2023