- Title: UNITED STATES: "APOLLO 13" PREMIERES IN LOS ANGELES
- Date: 29th June 1995
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES (RTV - ACCESS ALL) ED HARRIS AT PREMIERE ( SOUNDBITE ENGLISH) HARRIS SAYING HE WOULD GO UP IN THE SPACE SHUTTLE TOMORROW IF GIVEN THE CHANCE
- Embargoed: 14th July 1995 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
- City:
- Country: USA
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVAAVC75QMB9EKYB9ARRO3IVQ8WO
- Story Text: It took 52 million dollars, flight simulators, weightless actors and an aircraft affectionately dubbed "The Vomit Comet" to complete.
Now Tom Hanks' latest blockbuster "Apollo 13" is streaking to success across movie screens in the United States.
Based on the near-disastrous Apollo 13 space mission, the film co-stars Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton and Gary Sinise.
Two days after the spacecraft was launched on April 11, 1970, one of its oxygen tanks exploded, destroying the main rocket engine and knocking out power.
Astronauts Jim Lovell (Hanks), Jack Swigert (Bacon) and Fred Haise (Paxton) abandoned the capsule and escaped into the attached Lunar Expedition Module.
Astronaut Ken Mattingly (Sinise), who was grounded just prior to the mission for medical reasons, led NASA's efforts to guide Apollo 13 the 205,000 miles back to earth.
For three days the world held its breath, and watched and waited. Then, miraculously on April 17, 1970, Apollo 13 splashed down safely.
Hanks, an astronomy buff, said he was proud to meet the now 67-year-old Lovell. The former Navy flier took Hanks up in his own plane to introduce him to weightless flight.
That nauseating experience was repeated when cast and crew filmed for 10 days on a specially-converted NASA KC-135 aircraft, nicknamed the "Vomit Comet." They were weightless for 28 seconds at a time as the jet dived towards earth.
The cast also visited the NASA's mission control centre in Houston, gleaning what they could about space flight from the astronauts themselves.
NASA then let the team loose at the controls of a space shuttle simulator for two hours of flight training.
Hanks, Bacon, Sinise, Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlin were on hand for the movie's Los Angeles premiere, along withdirector Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer.
Astronaut Jim Lovell, John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston, Eric Idle, Cathy Moriarity, Penny Marshal and Mike Myers also attended the screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Apollo 13 is scheduled to open in the United Kingdom and other European countries in late September/early October. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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