Apollo 13 (1995) - Square Peg in a Round Hole Scene (7/11) | Movieclips

Steely-eyed missile men

As an engineer it’s hard not to love this movie. Probably the only movie I can think of where guys who understand math, science and how to build things get to be heroes instead of the guys who know how to fight and kill.

This was not only NASA's finest hour, this was one of America's finest hours. They came together and solved the problem. It proved that the American people can do anything when our backs are against the wall.

I swear I would've been so pissed if the reason I died was because the CO2 cartridges were square but the scrubbers took round ones

The most amazing thing is this. During the time this took place. Hell during the time this was filmed. They did not have 1/100,000th the computing power of your current smart phone.

"And you, sir, are a steely-eyed missile man."

That laugh he does before saying "Tell me this isn't a government operation", it is so very true.

I'll be the guy who gets the coffee going ;)

Start the coffee pot, and the MacGyver theme song.

This scene never happened - but its so good that nobody minded.

This emergency on the Apollo 13 moon mission was the great achievement USA 🇺🇸 NASA ever achieved.

That is the kind of scene that lack from a lot of recent movie - not necessarrily about a technical problem, but any - where to a given problem, someone barges in and says "hey we could do that", and cut to the finished setup >>> Solution is provided without efforts. Oppenheimer comes to mind as a recent movie example for that problem.
Here the film is made to make us beleive that some actual work is going into designing a solution.

It also shows just how dangerous it was to be an astronaut.

Amusingly, in real life they didn't really fit one into the hole for the other. Instead, they used the connection intended to supply breathing gas to space suits: they attached a hose with a cartridge taped at the end to it, and switched the valves so that the gas from the cabin was passed through the original (used up) filters, and then via this pipe and the new filters.

If tiktok has taught me anything, it's that NASA should make everything square shaped, because everything fits in the square hole.

Sy Liebergott. Sy Liebergott. Sy Liebergott. If you like this clip, you should read Jim Lovell's book "Lost Moon," and see how it really went. It's a side bar to the movie, so I'm not complaining that it is dramatized, but I REALLY like the real version. In fact, I'd watch a whole movie on Sy Liebergott's finest moment.

What's truly amazing at least to me is that the guy that solved this major problem in real life did so in his head while driving to work.

Howard Joel Walowitz was the one they asked to get the coffee going.

If they made this movie again there would be a black female that would come in to save the day.

What is engineering if not having to solve problems with unreasonable constraints in not enough time.
Just another day at the office for these guys.

If I recall correctly an engineer came up with the solution whilst driving. Nonetheless, a prime example of KLUDGE IN ACTION

Yeah, but it was only one guy who did it though.

White people are amazing

This incident is forever sealed in the mindset of teamwork. Not just for America, but the whole human species.

What if there was no coffee then?

In fact NASA was smart enough to foresee this kind of situation and plan for using CM CO2 cartridges in LM were prepared in advance.

If the diagonal measurement of the square is less than the diameter of the round hole, then the peg will fit.

worst part is they could not even play the MacGyver theme or the A-Team theme as they were inventing :p

I hate to be that guy but they didn’t think of this on the fly - modding the CSM scrubbers to the LM scrubbers was a contingency NASA had worked on before, sometime around Apollo 8.

This is REAL American working style, b/c I worked with American enginneers in AIT 13 years ago.

Excellent scene from the movie, but it didn't quite happen that way. In reality, it was resolved by one engineer on his way to work (the "steely eyed missile man" mentioned elsewhere in the film).

And you, sir, are a steely eyed rocket man. Not something a geeky little engineer would ever think of hearing.

NASA….couldn’t figure round to square and vice versa? We’re F**ked.

This is an Engineering majors mandatory watch.

"It goes in the square hole"

Again, this shows the genius of not only Ron Howard as a director but the flight crew in general. 1,000 things could have gone wrong on this mission and yet with their ingenuity they were able to get the crew home.

It blows my mind that square peg in a round hole is an issue they didn't think of.

They should have had Richard Dean Anderson put in a cameo appearance in this part of the film!

There's a reason why NASA sent duct tape up with every mission after that? What a great scene! All Stagehands applaud!

Literally showed they want to fit a cube into a cylinder...classic.

One of my favorite scenes in any movie ever. The engineering team doesn't even hesitate. No complaints, no whining, no arguing. And they did it!

The Professor could fix that with two coconuts and a stick of bamboo.

There's a difference, these are trying to solve a problem with the tools they have to fulfill their duty. The other option? They just don't care. They care, I care, but frustration gets the better of people. 20+ years will do that!

The real story is less thrilling. It was 1 engineer on his way to mission control and he figured out how to solve the problem while he was driving in his car. When he got there they made the filter. Less Hollywood I know.

I think Mark B. Rober could actually do this and fix the problem. I wish I could pitch this idea to him.

Like a fine wine

I know its dramatized for effect, but damn if this isnt one of my favorite bits of the movie.

it's more noble to fail without disaster than to simply win. Winning is the easy part, making sure you fail without falling far is the hard part.

The world needs a good space movie where all the nations unite to save the lost astronauts

American ingenuity at its best.