A Brookhaven High School graduate credited with saving the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts died peacefully in Tennessee earlier this week.

Ed Smylie was 95.

Apollo 13 was launched 55 years ago this month and would have been the third crewed lunar landing. However, an oxygen tank explosion in the service module forced the mission to be aborted. The crew, consisting of Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, faced life-threatening challenges but ultimately returned safely to Earth.

It was Swigert who saw the flashing warning light after a big bang and said, “Houston, we have a problem here.”

It was Smylie who fixed that problem.

He and his team created a mock-up device using plastic garment stowage bags and duct tape that the astronauts had on board the spacecraft and gave them instructions to make their own. The Apollo crews switched to the new configuration and the CO2 concentration in the capsule dropped within 30 minutes. 

“If the carbon dioxide buildup had continued, we could not have survived,” Haise said.

Smylie said later in an interview that once he learned that duct tape was available, “I felt like we were home free; one thing a Southern boy will never say is ‘I don’t think duct tape will fix it.’”

Smylie went on to work a few more Apollo missions and held other high up engineering jobs and later worked with Haise in Washington DC to keep the International Space Station development progressing.

Smylie was born to Robert and Leona Smylie on a snowy Christmas Day in 1929 at his grandparents’ farm in Lincoln County. The Smylie family moved to New Orleans for Robert Smylie to build ships during World War II, but returned in 1944 to Brookhaven where his dad had taken a job as manager at the ice plant. His mother worked for a time as a waitress at the only cafe in town.

After graduating from Brookhaven High, Smylie served in the U.S. Navy then graduated from Mississippi State University in 1952 with a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering. He returned to Mississippi State in 1954 where he was an instructor in mechanical engineering and earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. After college he joined the Douglas Aircraft Company where he was involved in the development of the DC-8. 

When President John F. Kennedy announced in 1962 plans for a manned mission to the moon, he applied and was accepted for a position with NASA and was appointed as head of the Environmental Control Section.

His primary duties were the design and development of the environmental control systems for the Apollo program including the spacecraft and space suits to be used on all Apollo Lunar Missions. 

Robert and Leona Smylie are buried in Brookhaven. Susan Smylie plans to visit Brookhaven in mid-May to sprinkle some of her dad’s ashes on their graves.

She said her father is widely known for many accomplishments, but his greatest was fatherhood. “He was a great dad,” she said.