All language subtitles for Aapolooo

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

-[beep]
-[man 1] And, 13,

-we're ready on the TV when you are.
-[beep]

[man 2] Okay, I'm lookin' out
the right window now,

and not too far off in the distance,
you can see the objective.

It's actually beginning to look
a little bigger now.

-[beep]
-[man 1] Okay.

We're getting a good, uh, picture
of your destination there.

[man 3] We might, uh,
give you a quick shot

of our entertainment
on board the spacecraft.

[twangy notes playing over droning music]

[man 3] This little tape recorder
has been a big benefit

in passing some of the time away

in our transit out to the moon
while it's playing the theme from 2001.

["Also sprach Zarathustra"
by Richard Strauss playing]

[beep]

This is the crew of Apollo 13

wishing everyone in there
a nice evening and, uh, good night.

[music fades]

[rumbling, creaking]

[beeping]

-[crackling, booming]
-[alarm beeping]

[muffled radio chatter]

[gentle chatter]

[man 3] Houston, we've had a problem.

[suspenseful music playing]

[reporter 1] The Apollo 13 spacecraft
has suffered a major electrical failure.

Jim Lovell radioed,
"Houston, we've had a problem."

-[reporter 2] …a situation.
-[reporter 3] …hearing a loud bang…

[voices overlapping]

…emergency…

[voices continue]

[radio static]

[vehicle rumbling]

[reporter 1] At this moment
at Cape Kennedy,

the Americans are getting ready
to go to the moon again.

Apollo 13,
which is the fifth lunar flight,

and it's going to be the third landing.

[hopeful music playing]

[reporter 1] Three young Americans.

The commander of the flight's a man
we've often seen before, Jim Lovell,

a man who's got four kids
and who's making his fourth space flight.

[reporter 2] Lovell's easygoing manner
has always been a delight

to his coworkers,
who quickly tire of prima-donna pilots.

Fred Haise, from Mississippi,

was a high-school journalist
who once wanted to be a sports reporter.

As lunar-module pilot,

he'll travel to the lunar surface
with Commander Lovell.

Ken Mattingly, who finished
at the top of his test-pilot class,

he's been almost fearfully dedicated
to his work,

even by astronaut standards.

Flying has been his life,

all he has wanted
since he was about three.

[upbeat music playing]

[interviewer] A lot of people have asked
just why are we going to the moon?

What's your personal answer
to a question like that?

The main mission objective
of Apollo 13 is a continuing one.

We hope to find out a lot
about the origin of the moon

and from that, the origin
of our own planet, the Earth.

13 is targeted to land
in a far different area

than Apollos 11 and 12.

This one will land in a hilly region

in the very mountains of the moon,
which makes the flight more risky.

[foreboding music playing]

[music fades out]

[gulls cawing]

[reporter] Some of us think
space travel is, in a sense,

a search for another Eden.

Man has despoiled the place where he is

and that perhaps he ought now
to set out to find another place.

[calm music playing]

[Jim] There's something about the power
of rockets that fascinates people.

And it was a fascination to me,

long before there was a NASA
or anything like that.

[Jim over radio]
Welcome from the moon, uh, Houston.

[Jim in interview] I was on the very
first flight to the moon on Apollo 8

at Christmastime, '68.

[controller] Merry Christmas
up there, Jim.

[Jim] We were so curious, so excited,

like three schoolkids
looking into a candy store window,

watching those ancient old craters go by
from 60 miles above the surface.

But we were not able to land.

[Jim over radio] Please be informed
there is a Santa Claus.

[controller] You're the best ones to know.

[reporter] Jim Lovell intends
to sight a peak

which has been unnamed so far,

and when he does,
he's going to name it Mount Marilyn.

[interviewer] How did you feel
during lunar orbit?

I was apprehensive.

I have to admit that.
I wouldn't be normal if I didn't admit it.

-[man] How'd you feel when they came out?
-I was elated. [chuckles]

There really is a Santa Claus.

My husband said it,
and it sounded marvelous,

and I am so proud of him.

[Jim] I then was a backup
to Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11.

[Neil Armstrong] One small step for man.

One giant leap for mankind.

[bright string chord plays]

[Jim] I really wanted
to do the same thing.

I'm ready.

[ominous music plays, fades]

[interviewer] Jim,
I'm wondering at this point

just how your wife
and your children feel about all this.

[Jim] My wife knows I'm not planning
on doing any more flights.

She has sort of been a space widow here
for, uh, the last six or seven years,

but I really, uh…
still look forward to flying.

It seems to…
You'd be able to get away from everything.

-[light chuckling]
-You leave all your, you know…

-[Marilyn] Kids!
-[Jim] Leave all the kids below.

Um… But you do,
you get a chance to get up,

and you see things
in a more truer perspective.

And a space flight, to me,
is about the same way.

I really wasn't all for him flying again,

but I never did say anything
to him about it, of course.

Um… You have to beat the odds.

He was the first one to go back
to the moon for the second time,

and I was quite apprehensive about it all.

[wistful music playing]

[Marilyn] Nothing in the world prepared me
for being an astronaut's wife.

It was like being thrown
into a goldfish bowl.

Ticker-tape parades
for all these different cities.

[both laughing]

[Marilyn] There was the White House.

[aide] Mr. President,
may I present the Lovell family.

-[applause]
-Mr. James Lovell Junior.

[Marilyn] I mean, it was really
quite a celebration after Apollo 8.

[distant cheering]

[Marilyn] But it was a risky flight.

I didn't know at the time

there was only a 50-50 chance
they were going to come back.

A 50-50 chance.

You can't just say this to yourself,
"They're not going to come back."

[child shouts indistinctly]

I've always been asked that question,

what is it like to be
an astronaut's daughter?

It always amazes me that anyone
would think it would be any different

other than just the daughter of my father.

My parents really brought us up

to, um, feel like
he might be going to the moon,

but it would be just like
anybody else's father

who was getting dressed
to go to the office.

[interviewer] Jim, after four flights,

can a man who's done
all you've done find normalcy?

I sure hope so.
I'm gonna give it a try after this one.

[camera clicks]

We were very excited
about Jim walkin' on the moon.

But why 13?

Somebody had phoned me
that Marilyn was a little concerned

about launching Apollo 13

at 13:13 Central Time.

-Uh…
-[audience laughter]

[reporter 1] It's rather typical
in the brave new world of space flight

to defy an old superstition
and don't worry about the number 13,

particularly in a country
which often leaves number 13 out

in things like the numbering
of floors of buildings

and the seats in aircraft.

[reporter 2] Jim Lovell, the commander,
is anything but superstitious.

Fred Haise said he wished
they could launch on a Friday the 13th.

[interviewer] Ken, are you superstitious
about Apollo 13?

[chuckles]

No, I'm… I'm very happy about it.

[tense music playing]

[reporter] The flight of Apollo 13
has a giant question mark tonight.

Doctors confirmed beyond doubt

that astronaut Mattingly has been
exposed to the German measles.

This leaves two alternatives.

Postpone the flight at a cost
of several hundred thousand dollars

or substitute backup crewman
John Swigert Junior

for Mattingly as command-module pilot.

Lovell's worked with Mattingly
quite intimately here for a year.

Isn't he likely to feel,

"Oh heck, let's wait a month
and let Mattingly get the flight too"?

This is the… the… the tremendous task

the command…
the commander of the mission has,

is to reflect those personal feelings

against the cost to delay
this mission another month.

[camera clicks]

[Jim] We had already slipped the flight
once from March to April.

[camera clicks]

[Jim] My philosophy is
never miss the chance.

[camera clicks]

[Jim] We had to let Ken go.

[foreboding music plays, fades]

[distant mechanical clunking, beeping]

[reporter 1] Today,
three more Americans rocket into space

on probably the most dangerous
Apollo mission to date

and certainly already unique

since one of the astronauts didn't know
for sure he was going until yesterday.

[reporter 2] A new member of the crew,
Jack Swigert, delivered papers

to earn money for his flying lessons.

It came so fast he didn't even have time
to call his family back in Denver.

The weight of the country
riding on your mission,

you don't want to let anybody down.

[hopeful music playing]

[controller] This is
Apollo Saturn Launch Control.

T minus 3 hours, 7 minutes,
26 seconds and counting.

[ducks quacking]

[controller] Just a few minutes ago,
Ken Mattingly arrived in Mission Control.

Ken will be assisting at the console.

Sorry to see you here, Ken.

The adrenaline in the control room
was building up.

You could feel it. It was palpable.

Quarterback of the team
is the flight director.

A flight director's given a team
of between 15 and 21 controllers.

People that figure out
how to get us to where we wanna go

and how to get us back to Earth
to a safe landing point.

We've seen the, uh, triumphs.

We've seen the loss of crew.

This is where the business end
of space flight is put together.

[music intensifies]

[Walter Cronkite] These are
three-stage vehicles.

Big engines that get you off
of the surface of the Earth.

The second stage,
and that can get you up into Earth orbit.

Third stage, where you can get off
on the way to the moon.

[Haise] You look up and feel butterflies.

This is real.
I mean, this is really gonna happen.

[controller] This is
Apollo Saturn Launch Control.

We're at T minus 25 minutes and counting.
T minus 25 minutes.

All along I had planned on
not going to the launch,

and I was finding every excuse possible.

Well, at the last minute,
I decided I couldn't stand the thought

of not seeing him again,

and I had to bring the children down
and say goodbye.

I grew up with friends whose fathers
had been in accidents or had been killed

and so always had that fear
in watching them take off,

and I'd always have this kind of…
this pit in my stomach.

[controller] The launch sequence
has started.

Fifty-six seconds,
and Apollo 13 continues to be go.

Inside, there's not much you can do.

If we had a problem,
have to throw the abort handle,

and it'd fire the escape rocket.

You could hear the valves open up

and the fuel start to rumble down
these big manifolds.

[controller] Thirteen, twelve,
eleven, ten, nine, eight…

Ignition sequence has started.

…six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

[suspenseful music playing]

-[Jim] The clock is running.
-[beeping]

[controller] We have commit,
and we have liftoff at 2:13.

[applause]

We were as close as… as anyone could be.

The Earth just shook.

[controller] This is Mission Control,
Houston.

We appear to have a good first stage
at this point.

[Jim] Roll complete, and we're pitching.

[controller 1] Altitude, 1.2 miles.
Velocity, 1,500 feet per second.

[controller 2] 13, Houston, go at one.
We show the cabin relieving.

[controller 3] Thirteen hundred.

[controller 1] And at one minute,
ten seconds,

we show an altitude of 4.1 nautical miles.

[hopeful music playing]

[tense music playing]

[controller 1] Altitude now 17 miles,
coming up on staging.

-[beep]
-[controller 2] Go for staging.

[Jim] Go for staging. Roger.

[alarm beeping]

[Jim] Inboard.

Inboard.

[controller] Jim Lovell just reported
the inboard engine on the second stage

has shut down early.

[director] Flight confirmed.
Number five engine down.

[reporter] And we heard that
the center engine of the five went out,

and they are now continuing
on only four out of the five engines.

[beeping]

[Jim] Houston,
what's the story on engine five?

[controller] We don't have a story
on why the inboard out was early.

[beeping]

Booster, you don't see
any problem with that, do you?

[engineer] No.

[beeping]

[engineer] Negative.

All the other engines are go.

-[beep]
-[controller] The other engines are go.

-You're lookin' good.
-[beep]

[gentle music playing]

[reporter] They've been told
they can go on up on those four engines.

A little bit longer to get there.

At this point, almost up into orbit.

[Jim over radio]
Nothin' like an interesting launch.

[Jim in interview] Almost every flight,
something goes wrong.

I told the guys, "That's our crisis."

"We're on our way."

[reporter] During launch, a medic reports
the following maximum heart rates

for the three crewmen.

Commander Jim Lovell
had a maximum heart rate of 116,

Jack Swigert
had a maximum heart rate of 102,

and Fred Haise
also had a maximum heart rate of 102.

[Swigert] I tell ya,
it's sure an interesting ride.

[Haise] Look at that.

It really is zero G.

[chuckling]

[controller] Apollo 13, Houston,
your preliminary orbit down here

-is lookin' good.
-[beep]

[Jim] Roger, Houston,
and it looks good to be up here again.

[ethereal music playing]

One of the most fascinating parts
of space flight

is the observation of the Earth.

Things get a lot smaller.

The countries look smaller,

and the problems everybody has
appear to be smaller.

It's a very… tranquilizing effect

to sit up there and notice large countries
just pass by so serenely.

It's hard to imagine

why people cannot live more peacefully
with one another.

[reporter] After the astronauts
have checked all the systems,

the instrument unit,
helped by messages from the computers

in Mission Control in Houston,

tells the third stage to fire again.

And Apollo is on its way to the moon.

The crew quarters of the spacecraft,
the living and working area,

is the command module.

This is the only part
that returns from the moon.

Now, the Apollo spacecraft itself
has a service module,

which houses the tanks
of breathing oxygen,

electronic equipment,

a power supply, and drinking water.

The spacecraft separates
from the third stage,

does a U-turn…

comes back…

docks with the lunar module,

which will carry two astronauts
to the surface of the moon.

-[Jim] We're hard docked, Houston.
-[controller] Very nice.

[reporter] And that's the way
the two ships go to the moon.

[birdsong]

[controller] We show Apollo 13
to be 24,916 nautical miles from Earth.

[Susan] You know,
we went to watch the take-off,

got back home.

They put little boxes into our home.
They were called squawk boxes.

You could hear
everything that was going on.

[Jim] We'd like to hear what the news is.

[controller] Okay, let's see.

The Beatles have announced
they will no longer perform as a group.

Things had been going smoothly.

You know, it was just another one.
It was his fourth mission.

I had one squawk box in each room.

I had them on all the time.
Even when I went to bed, I had them on.

[Jim] Now Fred's engaged
in his favorite pastime.

He's rigging his hammock.

[Haise] It's kinda difficult
getting into a hammock.

I'm not sure if I keep
floating away from it

or it keeps moving away from me.

[Jim] We're all going to bed now.

-[controller] Okay, Jim. Good night.
-[beeping]

When we were young, we would sit
on the roof of the building I lived in.

Jim would point
the different stars out to me,

and he said, "Just think
that someday, a man might go."

I mean, here he's predicting this in 1952.

Just amazing.

Jim Lovell, he grew up in Milwaukee.

He married his high-school sweetheart,
Marilyn Gerlach.

They have two boys and two girls.

[Marilyn] We met in high school.
That was back in the early '40s.

[camera clicks]

[Marilyn] His father was deceased
when Jim was 12 years old.

[camera clicks]

[Marilyn] And, uh… he lived in
this one-room apartment with his mother.

He slept on the couch,
but that's all she could afford

with this little apartment.

[camera clicks]

[Marilyn] He came one day and asked me
if I would do him a favor.

I said, "What?" And he said,
"Would you go to prom with me?"

And I said, "I don't know.
I don't know how to dance."

And he said, "Well, I'll teach you."

[camera clicks]

[camera clicking]

[Marilyn] When we decided to get married,
I really didn't know

he was going into test piloting.

I knew he always wanted to be a pilot.

And then, before I knew it,
he decided to fly jets,

and I went along with it.

[stirring music playing]

[whimsical music playing]

[reporter] In 1962, he was one of nine men

out of over 200 to survive
the intensive screening

and become a member
of the second group of astronauts.

[Jim] We were 32 guinea pigs
walking into the door

not knowing what the heck
was gonna hit us.

It was perhaps the worst physical
I have ever had in my life.

Many of the people looked at it and said,
"Hey," you know, "This is a crazy thing."

[somber music playing]

[Jim] A rocket was blowing up
almost every other day down at the Cape.

Uh… I lost a lotta friends.

You're always going to a funeral
or something.

Those days were tough on all of us gals.

[Jim] I think there are few people
that actually thought

we were gonna land on the moon
by the end of the decade.

[reporter] The war in Vietnam ground on.

[Jim] It was a rather bad time
for the country.

-[shrieking]
-[Jim] With riots and assassinations…

Dr. Martin Luther King has been
shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee.

[Jim] …and a war going on.

[Richard Nixon] We find ourselves
rich in goods but ragged in spirit,

reaching with magnificent precision
for the moon,

but falling into raucous discord on Earth.

[Jim] I felt I was part of a thing
that finally gave an uplift

to the American people.

[hopeful music playing]

[Jim] The rewards
far overshadow the risks.

[solemn music playing]

[interviewer] Jim, you've been through
more flights than anybody.

Have you ever known fear?

[Jim] I think that someone who says
they haven't are only kidding themselves.

[reporter 1] The Apollo spacecraft
and the three men onboard

are well on their way
to disproving all those theories

about jinxes and the number 13.

[phone rings]

[reporter 1] Apollo 13, which was launched
at 13 minutes after the hour on Saturday,

is spending
a most uneventful April 13th in space.

[reporter 2] In previous flights,
the press room in Houston

was jammed with something
like 2,500 correspondents,

but for this flight,
only about 500 showed up.

Probably because, by this time,

walking on the moon
had become almost routine.

[controller] Apollo Control Houston
standing by now

for television transmission.

We all went to Mission Control
to listen to the men.

It just felt reassuring
seeing Jim at this point.

[controller] Okay,
you're on Candid Camera.

[Jim] What we plan to do for you today
is take you on through from Odyssey

into Aquarius, the landing vehicle.

I find myself now standing
with my head on the floor

when I get down inside the LM.

This strange-looking bird,
the LM, how does it work?

Well, this is the spacecraft that's used
to take men down to the lunar surface.

And two of the three astronauts

enter the LM by crawling in
through this tunnel.

They detach from
the command and service modules,

and they descend to the lunar surface.

[atmospheric music playing]

[Haise] Okay, I'm lookin' out
the, uh, right window now,

and, uh, not too far off in the distance,
you can see the objective,

and it's actually beginning
to look a little bigger now.

[control-room chatter]

[Jim] This little tape recorder
has been a big benefit

in passing some of the time away
on our transit out to the moon.

This is the crew of Apollo 13

wishing everybody there
a nice evening and, uh, good night.

[controller] Everything continues
to go well aboard Apollo 13.

-[beep]
-[Lousma] We'd like to check C-4 thruster.

[Swigert] Okay, Jack, the battery charge
has been terminated on battery B.

We have a very detailed
pre-sleep checklist we go through.

[Lousma] Roger. We see it, Jack.

[Kranz] We're getting ready
to close it out.

[Lousma] 13, we've got one more item
for you when you get a chance.

We'd like you to, uh,
stir up your cryo tanks.

[beeping]

[booming]

[indistinct radio chatter]

[alarm bleeping]

[radio chatter continues]

[indistinct chatter]

[radio static]

[Swigert] Okay, Houston,
we've had a problem here.

[Lousma] This is Houston.
Say again, please.

[Jim] Uh, Houston, we've had a problem.

We've had a main B bus undervolt.

[Lousma] Okay, stand by, 13.

-We're looking at it.
-[beep]

[dramatic music playing]

[man 1] The crew has reported
that the main B shows an undervoltage.

[indistinct] …had a spark there.

The recorded heart rates,
I can't believe one of 'em.

Looks like 189.

[man 2] Really?

[man 1] They sure jumped up
when that happened.

Our first thoughts were,
we might have been hit by a meteorite.

[Haise] We had a pretty large bang

associated with
the Caution and Warning there.

[Jim] And our O2 number-two tank
is reading zero. Did you get that?

[man 3] That can't be.

[Kranz] I don't understand. I don't…

[man 3] You don't believe
that O2 tank one pressure?

[Jim] No, no.

I mean, that data doesn't make sense.

We still don't have
the slightest clue what's going on.

[Lousma] Is there any leads
we can give 'em?

Are we lookin' at instrumentation,
or we got a real problem or what?

[beeping]

[Jim] Uh, Houston? It looks to me,
lookin' out the hatch,

that we are venting something.

We are… We are venting something
out into the, uh… into space.

[ominous music playing]

[Jim] It's a gas of some sort.

[Lousma] Jesus Christ.

[indistinct]

[Jules Bergman] Here is a special report
on Apollo 13.

The Apollo 13 spacecraft
has suffered a major electrical failure.

Jim Lovell and Fred Haise
reported hearing a loud bang.

They also reported seeing fuel,

apparently oxygen and nitrogen,
leaking from the spacecraft,

and reportedly gauges
for those gases were reading zero.

At that point, we said,
"Hey, this vehicle is dying."

"Very shortly,
we'll be completely out of oxygen."

-[Swigert] Houston, are you still readin'?
-[Lousma] Affirmative. We're readin' you.

Tryin' to come up with some good ideas
here for you.

[controller 1] I wanna use the cryo
as much as possible.

[controller 2] Assuming you'd want
fastest possible return.

[controller 3] …we have no choice
but to do it.

The pressure continues to drop.

[indistinct overlapping radio chatter]

[Kranz] Okay, now,
let's everybody keep cool.

Let's solve the problem,

but let's not make it any worse
by guessin'.

-[tense music playing]
-[indistinct chatter]

[Kranz] We're in deep shit.

We're about 200,000 miles from Earth,

about 50,000 miles
from the surface of the moon.

We've come to the conclusion

that we had some type of an explosion
on board the spacecraft.

Two of our fuel cells are offline,

and these are
our principal power-generation systems.

Our final fuel cell is dying.

[controller] Uh, Flight,
less than two hours now.

That's the end right there.

Uh…

[Kranz in interview]
Two of three fuel cells shut down.

We're not going to the moon anymore.

Apollo 13 is now two-thirds
of the way to the moon,

200,000 miles from Earth

at a point where, even in an emergency,

it is more efficient
to swing around the moon and return

rather than try an immediate abort.

[Kranz] Our job now
is to start an orderly evacuation

from the command module
into the lunar module.

Okay, all flight controllers,

I want you to get some guys
figuring out minimum power

in the LM to sustain life.

[overlapping radio chatter]

[man] It's pretty hairy.

This is Colonel Stafford
standing by for the Vice President.

Hello, Mr. Vice President, sir.

[Agnew] How bad is it?

[Stafford] We're activating
the lunar module as a lifeboat, basically,

and thank God that we have it onboard.

[Agnew] Yeah, you said it.

[Stafford] It will supply water, oxygen,
and it will supply electrical power.

We wanna get
the command module down shortly.

So it's a pretty critical situation,
but we're working like mad on it.

[Bergman] A frantic scene we're seeing,

a scene of deep concentration
in Mission Control in Houston.

And astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise

have now made their way
to their Aquarius lunar module,

so they can have its electrical power
and its oxygen to save their lives.

Activation 20.

"Power up" is a simple term,

but it's not like
a light switch in your house.

We'd never powered up a lunar module
in these kinda circumstances,

and we'd never, ever considered
shutting a command module completely off.

-Flight, EECOM.
-Go ahead.

[controller] Okay, we've got
an update on the time.

Looks like we've got about 15 minutes.

[chuckles]

[Lunney] CAPCOM,

we're gonna be out of power in 15 minutes.

[Kranz] The crew got 15 minutes
to get the lunar module powered up.

[controller] It's gonna take
about 20 minutes to do that procedure.

[Lunney] We don't have much time.

[Lousma] Fred, we figure we've got
about 15 minutes' worth of power left

in the command module.

[Haise] Uh, thank you, Jack.

[controller] Fred Haise,
still powering up the lunar module.

[Jim] Forward Omni. Okay, slow down!

[reporter] The astronauts
are getting rather harried.

One saying, "Let's take it easy
while we get this problem worked out."

-[indistinct radio chatter]
-[Haise] …circuit breaker…

[Lousma] Okay, 13,
you're both talkin' at once.

-One at a time please.
-[beep]

[exhales]

But what is most important,
he has to transfer the navigation data

from the command-module computer,
which is dying,

over into the lunar module computer.

[Jim] Okay, I want you
to double-check my arithmetic.

[controller] Three or four minutes,
Flight.

Three or four minutes.

[Kranz] And this data transfer
has to be absolutely perfect.

I was so afraid of putting
the wrong numbers in.

[Jim over radio] Three-five-six, six-nine.

One-six-three, four-two.

Aquarius is three-oh-two, two-six.

Three-four-five, nine-two.

Zero-one-one, seven-nine. Over.

-How's the arithmetic?
-[controller] Stand by. We're checking.

[indistinct]

[dramatic music building]

[Lousma] Aquarius,
your arithmetic looks good.

-We're getting good LM data.
-[beep]

Well, we're still alive.
We're still sitting there breathin'.

[Jim] Houston, Aquarius.

-[beep]
-[Lousma] Go ahead, Aquarius.

[Jim] Okay,
Odyssey is completely powered down now.

-[beep]
-[Lousma] That's where we wanna be, Jim.

We were suckin' air.

We'd picked the path,
and it was only some time downstream

that we would know that the path
we'd picked was the correct one.

We were truly in a survival situation.

[Cronkite] The greatest drama yet
in space.

After a mysterious accident last night,

Apollo 13 still is speeding
toward the moon,

but the mission
has been drastically changed.

No longer is it going to put
the astronauts down on the moon's surface.

Instead, the mission, simply
to get the astronauts safely home.

[reporter] How are you today?

I'm fine, thank you, today.

-[Marilyn] Hello?
-Hello, Marilyn. It's Ken.

[Marilyn] Hi, listen, uh, Ken,
I'm naturally concerned.

How are things looking this morning?
My kids aren't up yet.

They don't even know what's going on

because they went to sleep
before all this came up last night.

I was wondering what I could tell 'em.

[Ken] They're now
on a free-return trajectory.

I don't know if that happened
before you went to bed.

[Marilyn] I didn't go to bed until
I think it was 4:00, and I got up at 5:00,

so I really haven't had much sleep.

You listen to the TV, and you just…
can't believe everything they say.

It's only by a very narrow margin

that we're going to get
Lovell, Haise, and Swigert back alive.

[camera clicks]

[Marilyn] I'd just come in from
watching Jim over at the space center.

The accident actually occurred
from the time I left NASA

until I got back to my house.

We saw the television reviews
on what was going on.

There was so much debris
from the explosion

still swirling around their spacecraft

that they had trouble taking
star sights to align themselves…

[Marilyn] There was only a 10% chance
that he would come back.

[camera clicking]

[Marilyn] I just had
to get away from everyone.

I mean, every room in my house
was full of people,

and the only place I could get to myself
was my bathroom.

And I literally got down on my knees
and prayed.

How critical is this situation right now,
in your opinion?

[Lunney] Well, uh…
I think it is as critical,

perhaps, probably,
the most critical situation we've faced

so far in a manned space-flight program,
uh, in flight.

[reporter] Are the astronauts safe?

Well, uh… they're… [clears throat]

They're safe in the sense that, uh…

we have the situation stabilized now,
we think.

Uh…

And we have to continue
to keep the situation that way,

uh… and bring 'em on home.

[suspenseful music playing]

You can sense trouble in this room.

[Lunney] Okay, everybody, look,
we got a number of long-range problems,

lifeboat problems now
associated with the LM.

[controller] Discussions
here in the control room

have to do with, uh, consumables
in the spacecraft.

Electrical power, water...

[Kranz] We had two days of consumables,
oxygen, water, and electrical power,

but it would take us four days
to get the crew back home.

[indistinct chatter]

[Kranz] We gotta figure out how to turn
the lifeboat into a survival vehicle.

[indistinct chatter]

We knew we were in deep, deep trouble.

The lunar module was only designed
to support two people.

We had three people,
and we were at least 90 hours from home.

-[beep]
-[Lousma] Aquarius, Houston.

How do you read?

[Haise] Okay, you're loud and clear there.

[Lousma] Roger. Same here.
We're still discussing the next move.

[beep]

[Haise] Let's make it a good one.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Cronkite] We have learned that a group
of astronauts are working in a simulator

here at the Manned Spacecraft Center,

trying to duplicate the conditions
of the men out in space.

[reporter] The backup crew,
including Ken Mattingly,

the man who didn't go,

spent much of the night
trying out various suggestions.

[Lunney] CAPCOM, Flight.

As we, uh, approached the moon,

we had to make a fundamental decision

on how fast
we wanted to get back to Earth.

-[phone ringing]
-[determined music playing]

[Kranz] We would have to improvise ways
to stretch our power, water.

We're gonna have to come up
with an answer in hours and days

in what normally takes months and years.

We're gonna be outside all known design
and test boundaries of the spacecraft.

[indistinct chatter]

[controller] This is Apollo Control.

A decision has been made to perform
the descent-propulsion-system burn.

The current thinking is to use

the lunar-module
descent-propulsion system,

the big engine of the LM,

to propel the entire spacecraft stack

to a higher velocity
as they go around behind the moon

to come back to Earth a day earlier.

Which will see them rounding the moon

at about 9:00 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time tonight,

and then a burn will be done to speed up
their return toward the Earth.

By putting an extra little burst
into the system, you cut off a day,

and that day may be, literally,
a life-and-death matter.

[Marilyn] Hello. What a nightmare.

[man] Well, the plan right now
is to take about an 800-foot burn here.

[Marilyn] Yeah.

So, uh, you all keep me posted, okay?

[Susan] Uh… My mother just did not want me
to know what was going on,

and, um, I remember going to school.

Everybody was coming up to me,
all these kids.

You know, "Are they gonna come back?
Are they gonna come back?"

A boy came up to me,
and he said, "I am so sorry

that your father's going to die."

I had to leave. I had to go home.
I couldn't stay at school.

[somber music playing]

All of my mother's good friends
were all downstairs,

around our coffee table,

and Father Raish
from our church was there.

He was administering communion.

And, um… I ran past all these women,
slammed the door, and ran out,

and my mother came out after me.

She was crying, and she said to me, um,

"They are going to figure out
how to get back."

"Between them and Mission Control,
they will figure out a way to get back."

[Jim] We must be getting
pretty close to the moon.

[unsettling music playing]

[controller] Apollo 13
now 421 nautical miles above the moon.

[Jim] Uh, Houston?

-[beep]
-[controller] Go ahead, Aquarius.

[Jim] We're in the shadow of the moon now.

The sun is just about set,
as far as I can see,

and the stars are all comin' out.

Man, look at those stars.

[dreamy music playing]

[Swigert] I don't think people realize
that, uh,

there is no night out in space.

It's daylight 24 hours a day,

simply because there's nothing
to come between you and the sun.

The first time you see night again

is when you go
into the shadow of the moon.

And I think that the darkness there,
after three days of sunlight,

uh, makes the stars, uh…
exceedingly brilliant.

[newsreader] Good evening, everybody.
In the bleak, black silence of space,

a real cliff-hanger.

The crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft
swinging around the moon,

attempting to limp home as best it can.

Water, oxygen, and power
all happen to be in short supply

with nearly three days yet to go.

[controller] We show one hour,
seven minutes away from time of burn.

We were saying,
"Wow, look at that. Look at that."

[eerie music playing]

[Haise] The ruggedness.

Really chewed up.

A very, uh… unfriendly,
bizarre-lookin' place,

unlike anything, you know, we look at
as a place we'd wanna be.

[Jim] I can even see Mount Marilyn
from here.

[epic music playing]

Bein' out there,
you saw the Earth as it truly is.

Just a small planet.
It was very beautiful.

If you hold up your thumb at arm's length,
you could blot it out completely.

And you begin to think,
"Hey, everything that I know,

my family and my friends,
it's all down there on that little thing."

[Jim] You take your thumb away,
and you say, "I've gotta get back there."

[Jim over radio] Let's get the cameras
squared away.

Let's get all set to burn.

We got one chance now.

[controller] Our countdown clock
shows 49 minutes from time of burn.

[reporter] The world press
almost was caught napping

during the recent crisis aboard Apollo 13.

But then, suddenly, things changed.

Now the story is being heard
in every language.

One reporter actually missed the crisis,

and on Monday afternoon he got tired
of covering a routine space flight,

so he left and went to Mexico
for a brief vacation.

He came back,
walked into the press room, and asked,

"Did I miss anything?"

[man 1] Peter, pass me the model, mate.

-That model.
-[woman] Thirty-seven!

Right, take four!

And at the moment, from Apollo 13,

temporary silence as the crew get on

with concentrating on
some of their final preparations

for the burn that will bring them back…
back home to Earth.

First of all, the only engine
that is working is that one there.

The lunar-module descent engine.

The LM's descent-engine system
that should've landed them on the moon

is being utilized to speed up the return

to guarantee that they don't run out
of electrical power.

[man 2] The thing
we have to be cautious about

is that they have not ever planned
to use these systems

to do these maneuvers.

[controller 1] If the engine shuts down
for some reason during the burn…

[controller 2] Everybody feels
that it will work.

[hopeful music playing]

We have these two spacecrafts
that weren't meant to be bolted together

and flown this way.

[reporter] The result, if successful,

a vital improvement
in that narrow margin of safety.

I believe
that the go/no-go decision is due

any second now
from Flight Director Gene Kranz.

[Kranz] All flight controllers,
I'm comin' around the horn.

Go/no-go for the burn.

-RETRO?
-Go, Flight.

-GUIDO?
-Go.

-Guidance?
-Go.

-Control?
-Go.

-TELMU?
-Go.

Okay.

CAPCOM, we're go for the burn.

Com, the computer's his.

Ten seconds to go.

[dramatic music playing]

[controller] Aquarius, Houston. Over.

[Jim] Go ahead, Houston.

[controller] Jim, you are go
for the burn. Go for the burn.

[Jim] Roger. Understand. Go for the burn.

We were down to our last engine.

If this thing doesn't work,
we're in real trouble.

[clunking]

[whooshing]

-We have ignition.
-[Jim] Rodge.

[BBC man] Engines on.

[beeping]

[Jim] We're burning 40%.

[man] Is it stable, Control?

-Looks good now.
-[man] Roger.

[low-pitched grinding]

[Jim] 100%.

-[controller 1] Roger.
-[controller 2] Throttle up at 100%.

[whooshing]

[beeping]

[controller] Coming up on three minutes
into the burn.

How you lookin', Guidance?

[controller] That TCP's a little bit high.

Hot engine.

[beeping]

Watch it real close.

CAPCOM, reminder, descent reg 1 off.

Descent reg 1 off, sir.

[controller] Ten seconds to go.

[frenetic music playing]

[controller] Shutdown.

[music fades]

[controller 1] I'd say
that was a good burn. Good burn, Aquarius.

[controller 2] Commander Jim Lovell
reporting shutdown.

Engine is off. We're at 79 hours,
32 minutes into the flight.

[BBC man 1] Well,
that was a pretty successful burn.

[BBC man 2] I must say,
I was very impressed

by the coolness of the whole procedure,

particularly from Mission Control
and also from the spacecraft as well.

[controller] Good burn, Aquarius.

[Jim] Roger. Now we wanna power down
as soon as possible.

-[controller] Roger. Understand.
-[beep]

[BBC man 1] Lovell asking there
if he can turn off most of the instruments

as soon as possible, in order to conserve
that vital electrical power.

After the burn was over,

we knew we were in the ballpark
for getting the crew back home,

but we didn't know for sure.

[clicking]

[controller] The target level
during the power-down

is to keep it to at least 14 amps.

A couple of lightbulbs' worth of power.

[Lunney] We've got a lot of trade-offs
to make here.

-[beep]
-Turn the fans and heaters off.

[clicking]

-[low rumbling]
-[stark music playing]

It was quiet. It was, uh… a time
when you really started to think.

[gentle music playing]

[Jim] Very tough moment.

Second time I had been to the moon
and, uh, so close.

This was the last chance
that, uh… that I'd have to be up here.

[Cronkite] So the moon-landing portion
of the Apollo 13 mission

cancelled, scrubbed, and forgotten.

The plan will be to keep the power down.

They'll simply drift in flight
until Friday morning.

[siren wailing]

[reporter] Apollo 13
is still walking a tightrope

far out in space.

Here at the Command Spacecraft Center
today,

they took one whole shift
of flight controllers

out of Mission Control

and set them to thinking up ways
to get around the problems still ahead.

One of these problems
involves the air they breathe.

The crew was suffocating.

Their breathing had poisoned
the atmosphere in the spacecraft

with carbon dioxide.

They have set up a jury-rigged system
of cleaning the air of carbon monoxide.

[controller] Uh, we recommend
that you either use a wet wipe,

or cut off a piece of a sock
and stuff it in there,

or you can probably even crumple up
some tape and use that. Over.

[reporter] While this is working,
no one is certain it will go on working.

[Cronkite] Will they last
the two and a half days

till they splash down in the Pacific?

[reporter] But more trouble
could lie ahead for the astronauts.

The latest report says
a tropical storm named Helen

is inching closer towards
the Pacific landing site and building up.

[Bergman] So that's the way we stand
in this Apollo 13 flight.

A flight that, almost uniquely,
seems to have been jinxed

from the very beginning.

And we're not out of the woods yet,
not by a long shot.

[Jim] But, uh… we were still alive.

We'd better just keep on charging.

[disturbing music playing]

[Jim] Another note of interest
to the crew-systems people.

Tell them they don't have to bother
putting a refrigerator on board.

I just brought out some hot dogs,
and they're practically frozen.

[controller] Okay, we copy that, Jim.

[reporter] It appears
to be a little chilly

inside the command-module cabin
at the present time.

We have a reading of 38 degrees.

It was really gettin' cold.

The water was dripping
off the walls and the windows.

We didn't have
the proper clothes for warmth.

[controller] Is anybody sleeping
in the command module right now, Jim?

[Jim] Negative, Joe.
It's just too cold in there,

but I have got Fred
stashed over here to my left.

Thirty-eight is mighty cold.
It's a lot colder than it was last night.

[Marilyn] Has Jim gone to bed yet at all,
do you know?

-[Ken] No, uh…
-[Marilyn] Is he still up?

[Ken] Let me tell you
what this visual is here.

Jim wasn't sleeping.

Well, the doctors thought
maybe I could come over

and talk Jim into getting some rest
because he never did go to sleep.

I said there's no way I could do that
because I would just get over there,

and I would probably…

I'd probably break down
in front of the world and everyone.

I just couldn't do it.

Because that would've been difficult
for him too.

[ethereal music playing]

[Jim] Although we thought of our families,

uh… we didn't talk about them
among ourselves.

[distant echoing laughter]

[Jim] We knew that they were praying
for us, but we were busy getting home

so that they wouldn't
have to worry about us.

[Lousma] Everything's running real smooth
over in Timber Cove, Jim.

-[Jim] That sounds pretty good.
-[beep]

[reporter] President Nixon drove
through the rain from the White House

to the Goddard Space Flight Center
to be kept up to date on the mission.

A White House spokesman said
the president was concerned

and hopeful
that the astronauts would return safely.

[controller] Now, on that maneuver
that we transferred to the manual column,

now, you got that DPS, uh… thrust model

set to 10%
all the way through the burn, didn't you?

[Jim] Yeah.

Okay. We went back and reconfigured
the target table, didn't we?

There was something
causing the vehicle to drift a little bit.

[controller] Best data we've got now,
Flight, you'd have to make the maneuver

because you're not in the corridor.
You're not reentering at the moment.

For some reason,
our trajectory's shallowing out.

We got a quarter
we have to come in through,

and it's only about two,
two and a half degrees wide,

and if you come in too shallow,
we skip off the Earth's atmosphere.

We'd go completely past the Earth.

We'd come back to Earth someday,

but the crew of the spacecraft
would be long gone.

What is happening
that we don't understand?

Why, why, why, why, why?

Uh, this bothered me.

-[beep]
-[controller] Uh, Jim? Uh…

The situation is that, at the moment,
we're a little bit shallow.

[Jim] We're shallow?

[Swigert] That's the important thing.

[reporter] The Apollo 13 spacecraft
is off course.

If the astronauts cannot make
the correction in their flight path,

the three Americans will die in space.

If they didn't make it
through this window,

they would skip off into space,

and they would just go around
until they ran out of oxygen.

And I would picture him like that.

You know, how scary it would be,
what he'd be thinking.

[Lousma] Okay, Jim, to come in
a little more steeply,

it's going to be a manual burn.

[Jim] A manual?

Sounds like something
that we came up with on Apollo 8.

[Lousma] Everybody wondered
if you'd remember that. By golly, you did.

[Jim] Although I thought
I'd never have to use it.

[indistinct]

[radio interference]

[Haise] Another burn
that's never been done.

[Jim] So we had to make another burn…

but our computer was down.
Our guidance system wasn't working.

Our autopilot was off.

We had to do it manually.

We had to use the Earth as a target,

line it up with a little gun sight
that we had

in the window of the lunar module.

[man] Earth, uh… in the window.

[Jim] I know that when that engine goes on

that I'll never be able to keep
the Earth in the window by myself.

"Fred, keep the Earth
from going back and forth too much."

"I'll keep the Earth
from going up and down too much."

"Jack, time it with your wristwatch."

[controller] Burn time of 14 seconds.

One minute away now.

[Bergman] This maneuver has to work.

[Jim] We're flying right now
by the seat of our pants.

[Haise] I'm ready now.

[controller] Ten seconds away now.

[rapid ticking]

[clunk]

[booming]

[controller] Ignition.
We're burning. Copy that, Charlie.

[controller] Thrust looks good.

[intense music playing]

-[whooshing]
-[rattling]

[controller 1] 7.6 feet per second.

[controller 2] How do we get that?

-[Lousma] Stop the engine.
-[controller] Shut down.

[music fades to suspenseful chord]

[controller 1] Okay, now.

[controller 2] Good show.

A real kind of a… a true coordinated
hodge-podge maneuver there.

[peaceful music playing]

[newsreader] So the three astronauts
head toward home across a desert of space,

their oxygen and water running low.

Perhaps this story
will be seen one day as a parable.

This Earth is also a spinning spaceship.

All of us are astronauts.

And our oxygen and water
are also diminishing.

But we have no place to go.

[controller] Is it snowing in there yet?

[Haise] Is it what?

Oh, snowing.

No, uh… No, not quite.

[controller] You'll have some time
on the beach to thaw out

after this experience.

-[Haise] Hey, that sounds great.
-[beep]

We were really worried
about, uh, crew condition here.

Freddo, Fred Haise had developed
a high body temperature,

about 104 degrees, severely dehydrated,
bad urinary infection.

We realized how desperate it was
on board the spacecraft.

[controller] The entry weather tomorrow
is lookin' better all the time.

Hang in there. It won't be long now.

[reporter] Less than 14 hours away
from its scheduled return,

the astronauts must feel that each hour
is made up of more than 60 minutes.

[Ken] We think we've got all
the little surprises ironed out for you.

[Swigert] I hope so
because tomorrow is examination time.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Cronkite] Today, around the world,

there were expressions of hope
that the crew's return will be safe.

The entire world was following
the return of Apollo 13.

And in almost every city, people prayed
for the lives of the spacemen.

Ten thousand joined Pope Paul
in prayer at St Peter's Basilica.

I never realized that something like this
would have an impact

on the world like it did.

[Cronkite] Never have so many people

prayed at the same time for the safety
of a single operation

such as this.

Thousands who are gathered

in Grand Central Station
here in New York City.

[reporter] Walter, even though
your reports and others that they've heard

are relatively confident,

I think there still is a sense
of foreboding about this flight.

I think they need a lotta luck
and a lotta prayers,

and we'll bring them home safely.

[tense music playing]

[Jim] I'm lookin' out the window now,

and that Earth is whistlin' in
like a high-speed freight train.

This all now had to happen by the clock.
There was no back-out.

We were comin' home.

It's a cruel paradox that the nearer
they come to the safety of the Earth,

the nearer, too, comes the moment
of perhaps the greatest danger.

The reentry sequence
is a very tricky maneuver,

quite different
from the normal return to Earth.

[Kranz] We have the lunar module.
That's our lifeboat.

We have a dead service module
where the explosion occurred.

We have the command module,

which is our reentry vehicle
but with limited power.

So we gotta separate all of these pieces

so we can bring this crew
back through the atmosphere.

[reporter] For the first time
since the accident,

the command module
will be operating on its own.

The command module's heat shield

will absorb
the 5,000-degree heat of reentry.

[Kranz] First of all, the crew
had to power up the command module.

Okay.

We powered it down,
not necessarily gracefully.

We kind of did
what we had to do fairly quickly,

and then it spent four days
in near freezer-like conditions.

Just a lot of unknowns
about how it was gonna behave.

[Ken] Hello, Aquarius. Houston.
How do you read?

[Swigert] Okay, very good, Ken.

Okay, uh… let me, uh,
take it from the top.

We're starting off with a set of timeline…

[reporter 1] Astronaut Fred Haise
has been going through a long checklist

with Mission Control.

[Ken] …normal entry checklist.
There will be some…

[reporter 2] In two hours, all three men
have to be inside the command module

and have to be going into reentry,
so this is critical now.

[controller] Aquarius. Houston.

[Jim] Go ahead.

[controller] You're go to start
powering up the command module.

[Jim] Jack's entering
the command module now.

-[controller] Okay, Jim.
-[beep]

Water was collecting everywhere.

We had to get out a towel
to wipe off the instrument panel

to see the instruments.

[indistinct]

[Kranz] Okay, flight controllers.

Let's keep it quiet, monitor the loops

in case they have any problems
in power transfer.

[controller] Okay, press on.

We started powering up
the command-module systems,

system by system.

Starting at one row,
pushing six, and stop for a moment.

Wait to see
if we smelled any insulation burning.

[unsettling music playing]

[clicking, rattling]

[beeping]

[controller] Beautiful.
Looks good, Flight.

[Jim] Houston. Aquarius.
Odyssey is trying to call.

Do you read 'em?

-[beep]
-Odyssey. Houston, over.

-[beep]
-[radio static]

-[Swigert] How do you read?
-[controller] Okay, read you, babe.

You're looking good
on the ground, Odyssey.

-[Jim] Uh, Ken, this is Jim.
-[Ken] Yes, sir.

-[Jim] Appreciate the work you've done.
-[Ken] Roger.

Of course, we'll be watching you
and anything we can do for you.

[Jim] Hey, that'd be good, Ken.

They're going to be preparing
to jettison the service module.

We're interested in taking
some pictures of it, if we possibly can.

[controller] You can jettison
the service module when you're ready.

[Jim] Okay, sounds good.

Okay, I've got her, Houston.

And there's one whole side
of that spacecraft missing!

The whole panel is blown out,
almost from the base to the engine.

[Haise] It's really a mess.

Man, that's unbelievable.

These oxygen tanks were sitting around
under the heat shield.

So when they blew, it obviously had torn
the side outta the vehicle.

The question is what else did it do?

What kinda shape's the heat shield in?

[Bergman] That heat shield
directly was linked to the service module,

and all panels of that service module
were blown out.

What condition is the heat shield in?
Their lives depend on that heat shield.

[controller 1] We're standing by now
for reports of jettison

of the lunar module.

This is the time
to bail out of the lifeboat.

[controller 2] Okay, everybody stand by
for LM final sep.

[reporter] There'll be
a certain nostalgia,

I guess, in saying goodbye to…

-[Jim] Okay, we are in sight.
-[controller] Stand by.

[Jim] LM jettison.

[emotional music playing]

You could watch it
slowly, uh, driftin' away.

I was sad to see it go.

[controller] Farewell, Aquarius,
and we thank you.

[BBC man 1] These men,
at certain points throughout the mission,

have come very close to death.

You cannot emphasize that enough.
They've come very close to death.

Now as they come down to this reentry
back into the Earth's atmosphere,

I wonder if we could
just take a cool, schematic look

at the kind of danger they're facing.

The spacecraft enters at 400,000 feet.

It then plows into the atmosphere.

Eighteen seconds after they arrive,
they're out of communication

because the atmosphere,
it cuts out radio waves.

And only at three minutes and 36 seconds

do they come out
of that communications blackout.

So, up until three minutes and 36 seconds,

we won't know
whether the heat shield has worked,

whether they're still alive,

whether the stress
has been too much for the command module.

But after reentry at 25,000 miles an hour,

their craft hits the water
at no more than 22 miles an hour.

And if that's not a technological miracle,
nothing is.

[controller] Thirteen minutes now
from predicted time of entry.

Velocity now reading
35,646 feet per second.

Rodge.

[controller] Flight Director Gene Kranz
now going around the room

posting his flight-control team
as to status.

[Kranz] All flight controllers,
I'm comin' around the horn. Go/no go?

-RETRO?
-Go, Flight.

-GUIDO?
-Go.

-Guidance?
-Go.

-Control?
-Go.

-TELMU?
-Go.

-Surgeon?
-Go.

-INCO?
-Go, Flight.

-AFD?
-Go.

Okay.

[controller] Odyssey. Houston, over.

[Swigert] Go ahead.

[controller] Okay, LOS in a minute
or a minute and a half.

-And welcome home. Over.
-[beep]

[Swigert] Thank you.

[dramatic music playing]

[Bergman] Apollo 13 is traveling
at more than 25,000 miles an hour.

It's over on the darkened side
of the Earth now,

descending toward that little spot
plotted out in the Pacific Ocean.

[Swigert] I know all of us here
want to thank you guys down there

for the very fine job you did.

[controller 1] I'll tell you,
we all had a good time doing it.

[controller 2] Apollo Control, Houston,
we've just had loss of signal

with Apollo 13.

We gave it our best shot.

Countdown.

[Lunney] It was
an intensely lonely period.

The crew's on their own,

and they're left
with the data that you gave 'em.

Each controller's going back through
everything they did during the mission

and, "Was I right?"

And that's the only question
on their mind.

[Lunney] We're a little shallower
than what we predicted.

[reporter] There's very little
anybody can do, including the astronauts,

except wait

as they come through the uppermost fringes
of the Earth's atmosphere.

All anybody can do now…
is cross their fingers.

It was so quiet
that you could hear a pin drop.

There was nothing else for us to do.

Confidence has nothing to do with it now.

[climactic music playing]

[rumbling]

[music fades to droning note]

[rattling]

[music screeches, fades]

[controller 1] Apollo 13 should be
coming up on max G right now.

Less than 30 seconds to go.

We will attempt to contact Apollo 13.

[beeping]

[controller 2] Apollo 13 should be
out of blackout at this time.

We're standing by
for any reports of acquisition.

[controller 3] Odyssey, Houston.
Standing by.

[Kranz] Getting reports
of ARIA acquisition yet?

-[controller] Not at this time.
-[Kranz] Okay.

[beeping]

[reporter] The spacecraft at this moment
is lost to everyone on Earth.

Odyssey, Houston?

[Cronkite] We oughta be hearing something.

Shoulda been out of that blackout
a minute and 15 seconds.

[Kranz] For the first time
in this mission,

uh… there is the first little bit of doubt
that's coming into this room

that something happened
and the crew didn't make it.

"Will you please answer us?"

[radio static]

[Marilyn] He had to come back.

I couldn't live without him.

-[radio crackles]
-[Swigert] Okay, Joe.

[enthusiastic cheering and applause]

[controller] Okay, we read you, Jack.

[triumphant music playing]

[reporters] There they are!

[reporter 1] All three chutes out.
Listen to the crowd!

[cheering and whistling]

-[controller] Got you on television, babe.
-[reporter 2] They've made it.

[controller] Odyssey, Houston.

We show you on the mains.
It really looks great.

[BBC man 1] They're in, and I make it
no more than five seconds late.

No more than five seconds late!

[controller] We have splashdown.

[reporter] Home at last.

[buoyant music playing]

[cheering]

[indistinct]

I think 13 was a milestone in survival.

The odds were overwhelming.

And, you know, I'll forever be proud
of being a part of that set of people.

[reporter 1] Today, a plaque for Apollo 13

has just been placed on the wall
of the mission control room.

[reporter 2] Ironically, that plaque,
of course, says,

"From the moon, learning."
"Ex luna, science."

There was a learning of a kind.

A learning of how to survive.

Everybody was screaming and yelling.

They all popped open
the bottles of champagne.

I even got some that day. [chuckles]

It was fantastic. [chuckles]

The biggest relief
I've ever had in my life. [chuckles]

[reporter] Is there any way
a wife can prepare herself

for a critical situation like this?

No. No. I have never experienced
anything like this in my life,

and I don't ever care
to experience it again.

I still feel the emotions within my body
that will probably never, ever leave me.

I didn't know for four days
if I was a wife or… a widow.

[reporter] The Apollo 13 astronauts
flew home to Houston last night,

and a noisy, happy welcome
from the ground-control scientists

who helped save them
from disaster far out in space.

[cheering]

I really wasn't relieved until
I actually saw him and got to hug him.

You know, just to know that he was real
and he… you know, he survived this.

And it really made you
appreciate life a little bit.

We're just so thankful.

[Jim] Home.

It suddenly dawned on us.

Just suddenly realized what we had done.

There were times we really didn't think
that we'd make it back here.

And I can recall,
about a year and a half ago,

when we were coming home on Apollo 8
and be able to look back on the Earth

that the Earth is really
the only place we had to go to.

It was the only place we could see
in the universe that was home to us.

[Swigert] Of all the welcomes home
that we've had,

this one means the most

because it was these people here

that made it possible
for me to be here tonight.

[applause]

[interviewer] What implications
could this accident on Apollo 13...

You know, uh… a lot of people ask,

"Do you feel
that Apollo 13 was a failure?"

I guess if you measure success and failure

on the basis of "Did you accomplish
what you started out to do?"

Apollo 13 was, indeed, a failure.

But Apollo 13 did something

that's never happened before
in the history of man.

That for a brief instant of time,
the whole world was together.

Offers of help and messages of concern
came from every country in the world.

And maybe if you measure Apollo 13,

and it is possible
for the world to live together,

then Apollo 13
was most eminently successful.

[pensive music playing]

[Jim] I don't look back too often.

If you don't look forward, then you lose
some of the meaning of… of life.

But being up there
and seeing the Earth as it really is…

and realizing how fortunate we are…

It's like a blue-and-white
Christmas-tree ball

hanging in an absolutely black sky.

And, of course, you don't see cities.

Don't see boundaries.

You see the Earth as it really is.

A grand oasis… in the vastness of space.

[ethereal music playing]