APOLLO 18

Cameron Crain
PID: 5458205 NID: ca182917
 Apollo 18 Movie

The 2011 Apollo 18 movie directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego is a fictional movie based
on a moon landing that went horribly wrong. While the plot of the movie is good there are many
parts that I found were not scientifically correct. The first thing I noticed right of the bat was the
mass of the objects, and how it didn’t have the correct look to it. The gravitational pull on the
moon is much less than that on earth, and this gives objects the feeling of less mass and takes
longer for them to fall to the ground. When I talk about surface gravity, I am referring to the
downward pull on everything within the gravitational reach. The average surface gravity of the
earth is 9.8 meters per second, while the moon is about 1.6 meters per second. The reason I bring
this up is because it shows us that things would have less gravitational pull on the moon but
would not allow things to float in space. In a few parts of Apollo 18 I noticed things that seemed
to float, which is something I learned does not happen on the moon. I was also under the
impression that things would just float around the cabin, which this movie sometimes depicts,
however they are just falling slower towards the ground because of the less gravitational pull.
Another thing that I mentioned in the paragraph before was the mass of objects on the
moon. Many people believe that the mass is changing which makes things lighter. In fact, this is
not the case at all things on the moon have the same mass as things on earth but appear to be
lighter because of the lesser surface gravity. In the movie, you see him being able to move the
rover by himself, making it seem as though it has less mass than it would on earth. Tying this
into to Newtons’ laws you will still have to use the same amount of force to move the object,
stop its motion or change its direction. Another thing I noticed within this film was the way that
the flag was moving during one of the scenes when the actor is outside of the space shuttle. It
seems almost to have some type of movement which is not possible with the way that there is no
wind on the moon.
During the start of the movie the two actors split from another and head down to the
moon. The one in the main shuttle they left is orbiting around the moon until they are all ready to
go back to earth. In this scene I realized that the main shuttle has found the gravitational field
around the moon which will keep it in orbit. The moon is approximately 238,900 miles away
from the earth which is why you lose the gravitational pull from earth on the spaceship and start
to orbit the moon. The gravity from the moon is also what bring in the secondary spaceship, and
makes it possible to land on the moon.
During the scene of the movie where the actor is running you notice that he does not
seem to be going fast, and at first, I assumed that was normal with the amount of gear and
garments that he had on. However, this is not the case at all a study done by a group of NASA
scientists revealed that you run faster on the moon because your gravitational pull is less creating
more distance than you would get on earth. I also learned that you could jump higher and will
fall more softly back to the surface. The reason for this being you have less net force on your
body which will have less drag on you when jumping.
During this film there was of course a lot of sound within and outside of the space shuttle.
Which on the inside of the space craft there is of course audible sound because of the closed
space, and outside there is sound in the actors’ ears because of there headsets. But the alien that
attacked them had a large screeching sound that was obviously audible by the actor outside of the
space shuttle. On earth we can hear sounds because the atoms and molecules are bouncing off of
each other and that is how we propagate sound. The moon is a vacuum, and the atoms are very
far apart creating a no sound environment. Which is why the scream from the alien in the movie
is not scientifically accurate. Noticeably on other planets sound is a lot different than earth. On
any planet that has an atmosphere we can hear sound, but there can be different things in the air
that will change the way that we hear it. On mars, for example, there is a lot more helium in the
atmosphere which would change the way that we hear sounds and noises.
I also noticed the tracks that were shown many times throughout the film on the surface
of the moon were quite accurate as there is no wind on the moons surface which leaves tracks on
the ground for a long time but won’t change very much. The reason they would change is
because of erosion, and asteroid impacts. I thought that the tracks seemed accurate to what would
have happened if this was on the moon.
Another thing I noticed was the way that he was being dragged in by the aliens which
brought me back to Newtons’ laws of motion. His body had a net force of 0 and then the aliens
put a force into it to drag him into the hole. This shows us the laws that if an object is at rest it
will stay at rest. So, his body was at rest laying on the ground and with not force being put into it
then it will stay at rest. Next, the force acting on an object is equal to its mass. When the body is
dragged the force had to be equal to the mass of the body. The third law is for every action, there
is and equal reaction. This was shown by the aliens creating a pull which created a movement of
the body.
Throughout most of the movie the one large part of science that I noticed was how much
momentum is used in our everyday lives. From walking to running to just doing tasks we use
momentum. Within the film I saw many examples of momentum. I saw it first when they are
simply walking around the spaceship, and then we he was saw running. Momentum is the
quantity of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity. There must be
momentum for an object to move. One scene that really stuck out to me is when he is breaking
the cameras on the space craft. He is swinging the hammer with enough force and momentum to
break the glass on the camera and makes it shatter.
Another interesting part about space, and even though it didn’t have a prominent role in
the movie is time. Time on the moon is a little bit faster than that on earth, and it is a weird
occurrence. A single day on the moon would be approximately 27.32 earth days so that would
make everything much tougher on the astronauts. It was interesting how they seemed to never be
worried about how long it was taking them to do anything.
I thought that the movie did a good job of props, but in real space travel there are many
more things that go into it. For example, when the one actor is dragged into the pit by aliens it
looks as though to me his suit is ripped and wouldn’t work anymore. Yet, you notice that he is
able to do everything normally. There is no oxygen on the moon so he would have been unable
to survive in that condition. Because of the no oxygen on the moon there are many pieces of
pristine metallic metals and highly oxidized irons. Also, the high amount of hydrogen in the air
creates a process that acts against oxidation.
The film crew did get a few things right. First of all, when they discover the body of the
Russian astronaut the body hasn’t decomposed, and this would be true. Because of the conditions
of the moon a dead human body would mummify itself and be left that way forever.
 Now, I believe aliens are real and that there must be other life forms around us. I always
enjoy seeing other ways that people depict aliens, and, in this film, I liked how it was different
and something unexpected with the aliens being rock like creatures. The only problem that I have
with that is I have a different vision of what I think an alien is. To me the moon has no resources
that could support other life forms. There isn’t water on the planet, and there isn’t anything that
could be used as food by another form of life either. I have always imagined Aliens being these
super intelligent beings that have watched and studied us. Sometimes, I wonder though is it a
species similar to us that just doesn’t have that technology yet.
 Works Cited

Chow, Denise. “On the Moon, Flags & Footprints of Apollo Astronauts Won't Last Forever.”
Space.com, Space, 6 Sept. 2011, www.space.com/12846-apollo-moon-landing-sites-flags-
footprints.html.

Harbison, Rebecca. “Can We Hear Sound on Titan? (Intermediate).” Curious.astro.cornell.edu,

curious.astro.cornell.edu/our-solar-system/59-our-solar-system/planets-and-dwarf-
planets/moon/258-can-we-hear-sound-on-titan-intermediate.

“University of Southern Maine.” "Does the Moon Have Gravity?" | Planetarium | University of
Southern Maine, usm.maine.edu/planet/does-moon-have-gravity.