Ron Howard's reconstruction of the events aboard NASA's Apollo 13 flight combined some of Hollywood's greatest talents to produce a masterful film. Apollo 13 takes us back in time to the late 1960s and early 1970s, when America's NASA space program was thriving and the world stood on the sidelines to see who would reach the Moon first. The impacts of the space program are still evident to this day. It is even said that by beating the Russians to the moon, we established ourselves as the world's leading power and catapulted ourselves to the status we hold today. As our space program flounders in the public eye today, this film illustrates a time when NASA's successes and failures had an enormous sociological impact on American and even international life. In many different aspects, the American space program and specifically the rescue of the Apollo 13 crew actually exhibited similar traits to those found in three of the major sociological perspectives: functionalist, symbolic interactionism, and conflict. On the one hand, we can see that NASA is a large structure made up of many smaller structures that continue to function. The government funds NASA, NASA hires crews to build and fly the ships, and the various crews each do their part to come together as a whole and make it all work (much like the ground crew did during the Apollo rescue mission). 13).Now, on the other hand, symbolic interactionism really manifests itself not only in the rescue mission or the space program itself, but in everyone's involvement throughout the film. Symbolic interactionism determines how we value things in life and how we form our opinions and priorities. Walking on the moon was the most important thing to Jim Lovell at the beginning of the film. However, as events unfolded, Jim realized that the true importance was life itself, his family and his crew. Again, without symbols, Jim's family would not have meant as much to him and he might have ignored them altogether. The last of the three sociological perspectives is the conflict perspective. Although this perspective barely becomes evident in the film, it does not play as important a role as the other two. The only time any form of power struggle appeared was early in the flight, when Jim and Fred resented Jack being aboard their ship, probably... middle of paper .... .. exploited loopholes and scraps have sparked public criticism and reductions in government funding. Its successes are no longer lauded in the eyes of Americans and have been sidelined as a national priority since its glory days in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The space program no longer serves as a unifying force, but as a a program that many believe is unnecessary when placed alongside other national issues. In conclusion, Ron Howard's Apollo 13 was a gripping recreation of the real events that took place over a year ago. a quarter of a century ago. This film serves as a model of American society and its sociological aspects. It illustrates various lessons about understanding society and social interactions, not only between the three crew members aboard Apollo 13, but also between the entire NASA crew and all of America and the world who watched the events unfold. Although the influence of the space program on the American way of life is not as great as in the 1960s and 1970s,..