Apollo 13: Flight Vs. Hollywood

Apollo 13: Flight vs. Hollywood
On April 11, 1970, 1:13 p.m, Apollo 13 was launched at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Fred W. Haise, Jr. who would be the Lunar Module Pilot, James A. Lovell, Jr. who would be the Commander, and John L. Swigert, Jr. who would be the Command Module Pilot, and would replace Ken Mattingly, would be the crew for this operation. This would be the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo Space Program, and the third intended to land on the moon. When mission control wanted to test run the oxygen tanks by stirring them, the Teflon-insulated wires that provided electricity to the stirrer motor were damaged, causing a large fire when electricity was passed through them. “The fire heated the surrounding oxygen,
This major error would cause huge setbacks resulting in an abort. As the astronauts made their way home a few problems had occurred. The CO2 levels began to rise which would make them pass out and die due to lack of oxygen. Because of this, the crew had to control their breathing in order to not raise the CO2 level until a solution to decrease the amount of CO2 level was solved. As all hope for the astronauts to return home safely seemed not possible because of this issue, mission control was able to come up with a solution using tools on the spacecraft. This saved the astronauts as well as bought them more time to make it home safely. Temperatures began to drop and the lack of oxygen still caused doubt that they would never be able to return home. However, the crew and mission control were able to do something that would go down in history as the greatest successful failure of all time. The reason why it was a successful failure was because even though they failed to land on the moon, they were still successful in returning home with the lack of equipment required for it to be possible to return to earth. The entire flight was just short of six days with them landing in
“He in fact did not host this party and was at Mission Control,”(Ettlinger). This scene, however, does a good job of introducing important characters. Another false statement that is “ranked number fifty in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema” “Houston we have a problem” said by Lovell, is actually said in the past tense as “Houston we’ve had a problem”. This original phrase was first said by Jack Swigert and then repeated by Lovell, which was then heard by mission control” (Mattingly). Another inaccuracy is the false Nassau logo “Saturn V” as the astronauts climb into the ship prior to take off. The emblem shown on the ship would not later be developed until 1976. “There is also a scene where the astronauts point out the “Sea of Tranquillity as they pass over it. The image in the movie is actually Hadley's Rille (it looks like a river), the landing site of Apollo 15.”