Apollo 13This was the first time I saw Apollo 13, even though I had heard so many great things about it. After having some time to think about it, I can honestly say that I got a lot out of it. Each of the film's four astronauts, Lovell, Haise, Mattingly and Swigart, responded appropriately to the many challenges. Mattingly in particular had a special challenge as he was left behind by his fellow crew members because there was a possibility he might have measles. At first he took it very hard and almost resented his fellow crew members for their ability to go to the moon. However, once he discovered the precarious situation his crew had found themselves in, he took appropriate action and went above and beyond his call of duty by refusing to accept anything but success in his simulations. This type of relationship refers, on a much smaller and less significant scale, to my group's dedication to making our model work. We spent more time than any other group in our time perfecting our model, spending more than an hour after school doing it, until we finally got it right, much like Mattingly's refusal to give up. Now, on a more technical level, our group could also identify with the difficulties of the Apollo 13 engineers because not only were we testing our models, but we were also the ones designing the models to work. Specifically I could see similarities between our Model 4 and the many issues we encountered along the way. We had to constantly improvise and improve the model, only with the supplies we had available, much like engineers had to find ways to find energy or lower CO2 levels, only with what's on board. The interaction between the engineers was an act... middle of paper...cause of a known and accepted problem (the foam that broke off had already caused minor damage previously), while the Challenger was the result of a part of the shuttle failed, just like Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was an internal failure that occurred during the flight so it wasn't as catastrophic as the Challenger's external failure, thankfully. I think we should still invest in space programs because of the danger we have already put on our Earth and the fact that eventually the space program could lead to successfully moving to another, other celestial bodies like Mars would have to cease with humans until we will have explored every aspect of the Earth. Nothing in space (that we can travel to) is as interesting as the deep ocean fissures that we haven't explored, because there is actually life down there that could help explain how life can survive extreme conditions..