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Comment by santiagobasulto | Hacker News Reader

If you haven't seen the film Apollo 13, do it. It's one of my favorites. Ken Mattingly is played by Gary Sinise, great performance.

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I highly recommend the BBC podcast, “13 minutes to the moon”. Second season is dedicated to Apollo 13 and has a long bonus interview with the commander and one of the mission controllers.

Awesome. Thanks for the recommendation!

I highly recommend the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(mi...

And the book on which it's largely based, A Man on the Moon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_on_the_Moon

Seconded. The miniseries gives the subject the space and scope that it deserves. And Chaikin's book is well written, but also detailed and well sourced.

I also recall enjoying Failure Is Not an Option by Gene Kranz.

And Flight by Chris Kraft. (Chris was Gene's direct superior)

I'd also put the documentary, For All Mankind[0], as a must watch. It's available on the Criterion Channel right now.

Mattingly is one of the narrators.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_All_Mankind_(film)

Wow, that's a good excuse to go rewatch the series :)

I'd say the first two seasons were more focused on the Space Race between USSR and the USA.

The writing in the third season has fallen off with some absurd scenarios with trained professional astronauts, and frankly lots of drama and less about the overall mission.

I do love the show but wish they'd focus more on hypothetical science and space related aspects and less interpersonal drama :(

That matches my sentiments with the show perfectly. I actually stopped watching after the second season. I'm glad it sounds like I haven't missed much.

You should check out the documentary, if you haven't already seen it. It looks like it might be on HBO and Fubo as well, according to Justwatch: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/for-all-mankind.

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