Tonight I watched Apollo 13 for the first time — a movie from 1995 that is based on the true Apollo 13 mission that took place a few decades earlier. The main character, an astronaut, is played by Tom Hanks. It was interesting to see an older space movie because I am so used to the fancy effects and high resolution of “The Martian” or “Gravity.” “Apollo 13” is noticeably less realistic, but the enrapturing plot kept my attention.  I appreciated how the movie went back and forth between what was going on with the space mission and what was going on at home (Earth). The stress experienced by the astronauts’ families was depicted very well.

In the movie, the Apollo 13 the space craft’s oxygen tank explodes, and the team is forced to abort the mission before ever being able to land on the moon. At the time, merely landing on the moon was a huge deal because very few had accomplished that. Unfortunately this means that the technology is also new, untested, and prone to fatal errors like the bursting of an oxygen tank.

It’s quite strange to imagine astronauts having such national prominence and attention. Today, astronauts are not put under the limelight because they travel to outer space to repair things floating around up there, rather than for the spectacle. If anything, astronauts are more obsolete, as robots inevitably increase in capabilities. Movies like “Apollo 13” will always be fun to watch for myself and for future generations to get a glance into the past when space travel was all the rage.