Originally Posted by
WHBM
Was she as portrayed in the Apollo 13 movie ?
Having gone to a classic British all boys' school, such opportunities were more limited, although in the class under us was May (always surnames only), who later went to Oxford and then he married a girl, who one day became … the UK Prime Minister. Meanwhile, looking for an Apollo 11 link, my mother came from a very rural small town where a teenage schooldays near-neighbour and apparent regular date was same-age Clarke (surnames again), much later better known as Arthur C Clarke, sci-fi space travel writer par excellence, 1940s fantasiser of GPS satellites, scriptwriter of the "2001" movie, and in the CBS coverage of the moon landing 50 years ago held things down jointly with Walter Cronkite. Maybe you recall him from there.
Well, it's been so long since I watched that movie, I do not recall whether Barbara is portrayed in the film! I can say her Dad was one heck of a great guy back then and relished a good joke. Jim also loved to give Frank Borman a hard time. Mr. Lovell had graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and was a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot while Mr. Borman had graduated from West Point (and later Caltech) and was a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. Both flew aboard Apollo 8 (along with Bill Anders) which was the first mission to actually go into orbit around the moon. Mr. Anders is the person who shot the photo of earth rising over the moon (known as "Earthrise"). The Apollo 8 crew also did a live broadcast while in orbit around the moon on Christmas Eve reading from Genesis which was very moving and truly memorable. On the way back to earth, Jim made an erroneous entry on the keypad of the nav system and Apollo capsule computer then thought it was back on the launch pad at KSC and began to reorient systems. Borman got a bit excited but Lovell told him not to worry about it and rectified the error. Borman, of course, subsequently left the space program and eventually wound up as CEO of Eastern Air Lines in 1975. Meantime, Barbara, yours truly and several other astronaut's kids ended up attending the University of Texas at Austin together after graduating from Clear Creek High School in League City, Texas.
And I certainly remember Arthur C. Clarke! The gentleman was a true visionary with regard to space activities. Who can forget "2001: A Space Odyssey" directed by Stanley Kubrick which I believe was based on one of Mr. Clarke's short stories. As for Walter Cronkite, I met and talked with him a bit at the University of Texas at Austin when he was there to dedicate the then-new UT School of Communications complex. A very nice gentleman as well who also got to speak with my Dad that day concerning the space program after I told Mr. Cronkite that Dad was involved with the space program in Houston. Walter was a real space buff, of course.