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"Duct tape is not a perfect solution to anything. But with a little creativity, in a pinch, it's an adequate solution to just about everything."
—Jamie Hyneman
The lists are extensive when you search the Internet and inquire about the possible uses of duct tape, a product originally developed for the military.
Applying duct tape to the bottom of furniture with the adhesive side facing up creates temporary sliders, protecting floors from scratches.
That same material offers a creative and temporary bug trap to keep pests away from your home. What about taping a small hole in a shed roof to keep water out?
Or covering an accessible splinter with duct tape and then gently pulling it out to remove the wood or fiberglass. Fixing a cracked plastic or a split in your office chair. Even keeping the cover on a worn leather Bible.
Duct tape can be used just about anywhere, except on air ducts, since these need to withstand temperature fluctuations, according to HVAC contractors.
A successful failure
One of the more ingenious uses of duct tape occurred during the Apollo 13 moon-landing mission, which ultimately failed to reach the lunar surface.
Apollo 13, made famous by the Oscar-winning movie of the same name, starring Tom Hanks, launched on April 11, 1970. The Apollo spacecraft consisted of two independent spacecraft joined by a tunnel: the Orbiter Odyssey and the Lander Aquarius. That design would prove pivotal for Commander James Lovell (March 25, 1928-August 27, 2025), Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise (November 14, 1933-), and Command Module Pilot John "Jack" Swigert (August 30, 1931-December 27, 1982).
In documenting the Apollo 13 flight, Dr. Elizabeth Howell reports that a fire ripped through one of Odyssey's oxygen tanks and damaged another. "Oxygen fed the fuel cells in the spacecraft, so power was also reduced," Dr. Howell notes. "Fortunately, the spacecraft Aquarius — designed to land on the Moon — was still in working order."
But Aquarius didn't have a heat shield, so it wouldn't survive re-entry back to Earth. The crew crammed themselves into Aquarius — designed for two people, not three — and began the long, cold journey home.
"Without a source of heat, cabin temperatures quickly dropped to near freezing. Food became inedible. Water was rationed to cool the hardware down," says Kimberly Hickcock, a free-lance science writer. "In the hours before splashdown, the exhausted crew scrambled back over to the Odyssey and powered it up."
The astronauts are saved — by duct tape
The New York Times reported that the day after astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert returned to Earth on April 17, 1970, near Samoa, President Richard Nixon awarded NASA's mission operations team the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In his remarks, President Nixon singled out Ed Smylie and his deputy, James Correale.
Why these two engineers among the 60-member team?
Smylie was at home on the evening of April 13 when Jack Swigert, not James Lovell (as in the movie), radioed mission control with this famous (and frequently misquoted) line: "Uh, Houston, we've had a problem."
The engineer responsible for safety was aware of the issue with the astronauts' retreat to the Lunar Excursion Module. Designed for two astronauts, three humans would generate lethal levels of carbon dioxide, Smylie thought.
To survive, the astronauts would have to refresh the canisters of lithium hydroxide that absorb the poisonous gases in Aquarius.
Smylie and the other engineers have less than two days to invent a solution using materials already onboard the spacecraft, a crisis depicted in Ron Howard's 1995 blockbuster film.
A printout of supplies included two lithium hydroxide canisters, plastic bags used for garments, cardboard from the cover of the flight plan, and a roll of gray duct tape, according to the Times.
"That's where we were. We had duct tape, and we had to tape it in a way that could hook the environmental control system hose to the command module canister," Smylie said in an Apollo 13 documentary, XIII, produced in 2001. "Command module canisters were square, and lunar modules were round. You can't put a square peg in a round hole, and that's what we had."
The astronauts followed the mission control instructions, and the adapter, using duct tape, worked. They could breathe safely in the lunar module for two days as they awaited the appropriate trajectory to fly the hobbled command module home.
A simple product and a humble man
The proverb "Tools require someone who knows how to use them" is apt here. The value is not in the tool but in the knowledge and skill of the user.
The same was true for Ed Smylie, who passed away in May of this year at the age of 95.
A graduate of Mississippi State University with bachelor's and master's degrees, Smylie applied for a job at the space agency in Houston, Texas, upon hearing President John F. Kennedy announce plans to send astronauts to the Moon. Smylie eventually became chief of the crew systems division, which was responsible for the life-sustaining equipment used by Apollo astronauts in space.
As to his quick response with lives at stake, "If you're a Southern boy, if it moves and it's not supposed to, you use duct tape," he said during the documentary, always playing down his ingenuity and role in saving the Apollo 13 crew.
"We would have died had their solution not worked," Fred Haise said in an interview. "I don't know what more you can say about that."
Sometimes complex problems are solved with simple solutions and the tools at our disposal. Such was the case with Apollo 13.
In frigid conditions nearly 240,000 miles from home, astronauts Lovell, Haise, and Swigert were thankfully reminded by NASA engineers why there's something great about duct tape.
Strategist.com
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