RIP Ed Smylie

[earendel]

Smylie was the engineer who led in the design of the carbon dioxide filters that helped save the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts. The three-man crew, confined to the Lunar Excursion Module, were overloading the CO2 scrubbers; the Command Module had lithium hydroxide canisters that would filter out the CO2, but they were box-shaped, while those on the LEM needed cylindrical ones. The scene was dramatized somewhat in Ron Howard's epic film Apollo 13.