There’s a scene in the movie Apollo 13 where mission control discovers a problem with the lunar module’s CO2 filter. The crew is in danger of suffocation.
There’s no replacement, so mission control must come up with a creative solution using objects already on the lunar module.
Deke Slayton and his team dump boxes of junk on a table. Deke holds up a large cube and a cylindrical filter and says, “We need to find a way for this to fit into the hole for this.”
Sometimes creativity is not about sitting around thinking up new ideas, but about getting more parts on the table.
[Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson]
