And David Scott, commander of Apollo 15, was the technical consultant. As Ron Howard explained this to me, he sees reality as more interesting and detailed than any fiction. No one would grasp the details were correct, but he felt they would contribute an irreplaceable texture to the film.

I became the math consultant for A Beautiful Mind in part because I was such an Apollo 13 buff. In my first call with Todd Hallowell, the executive producer, we spent an hour's aside discussing Apollo 13. This actually was part of the interview: Making a movie is intensely boring unless you're really engaged, and I demonstrated the required interest in detail.