<P> While planning the film, director Ron Howard decided that every shot of the film would be original and that no mission footage would be used . The spacecraft interiors were constructed by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's Space Works, which also restored the Apollo 13 Command Module . Two individual Lunar Modules and two Command Modules were constructed for filming . While each was a replica, composed of some of the original Apollo materials, they were built so that different sections were removable, which enabled filming to take place inside the capsules . Space Works also built modified Command and Lunar Modules for filming inside a Boeing KC - 135 reduced - gravity aircraft, and the pressure suits worn by the actors, which are exact reproductions of those worn by the Apollo astronauts, right down to the detail of being airtight . When the actors put the suits on with their helmets locked in place, air was pumped into the suits to cool them down and allow them to breathe, exactly as in launch preparations for the real Apollo missions . </P> <P> The real Mission Control Center consisted of two control rooms located on the second and third floors of Building 30 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas . NASA offered the use of the control room for filming, but Howard declined, opting instead to make his own replica from scratch . Production designer Michael Corenblith and set decorator Merideth Boswell were in charge of the construction of the Mission Control set at Universal Studios . The set was equipped with giant rear - screen projection capabilities and a complex set of computers with individual video feeds to all the flight controller stations . The actors playing the flight controllers were able to communicate with each other on a private audio loop . The Mission Control room built for the film was on the ground floor . One NASA employee, who was a consultant for the film, said that the set was so realistic that he would leave at the end of the day and look for the elevator before remembering he was not in Mission Control . By the time the film was made, the USS Iwo Jima had been scrapped, so her sister ship, the USS New Orleans, was used as the recovery ship instead . </P> <P> Howard anticipated difficulty in portraying weightlessness in a realistic manner . He discussed this with Steven Spielberg, who suggested using a KC - 135 airplane, which can be flown in such a way as to create about 23 seconds of weightlessness, a method NASA has always used to train its astronauts for space flight . Howard obtained NASA's permission and assistance in filming in the realistic conditions aboard multiple KC - 135 flights . </P> <P> In Los Angeles, Ed Harris and all the actors portraying flight controllers enrolled in a Flight Controller School led by Gerry Griffin, an Apollo 13 flight director, and flight controller Jerry Bostick . The actors studied audiotapes from the mission, reviewed hundreds of pages of NASA transcripts, and attended a crash course in physics . Astronaut Dave Scott was impressed with their efforts, stating that each actor was determined to make every scene technically correct, word for word . </P>

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