Movies - TV
Kevin Bacon Can't Forget The Puke Problems Of Apollo 13
By ANYA STANLEY
Filming realistic space movies often involve parabolic flights to recreate the gravity-free conditions of traveling the cosmos, but there are downsides to using this method. Kevin Bacon learned firsthand its drawbacks when starring as Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert in “Apollo 13,” and the nauseating effects training for zero-gravity can have.
The actors did simulated exercises with real NASA astronauts and with multiple rides on a Boeing KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft, also known as the “Vomit Comet.” Bacon shared his experience: “I did get thrown up on. One of the cameramen threw up on me. What’s interesting about being thrown up on when it’s zero-G is that it hovers there for a while.”
He continued, “It’s floating, and there’s nothing you can really do, except go, ‘Here it comes,’ and when they hit the G forces, it’s coming down on you.” Bacon explained that craft services didn’t help the training as they catered a Mexican feast, prompting the actor to say, “‘Can we just calm down on the lunch thing?’ I was afraid I was going to be wearing it that afternoon.”