Perfect Nostalgia

The reality:

Mission name: Apollo 13
Command module: Odyssey
Lunar module: Aquarius
Number of crew members: 3, named James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise.
Launch pad: Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Launch: April 11, 1970
Lunar landing: Cancelled due to onboard explosion
Landing: April 17, 1970
Duration: 142 h 54 min 41 s
Number of lunar Orbits: 0

The movie: Even if you just look at the above statistics, which I gleaned from several Internet sites, the power of the story is hinted at. Three men spent just under 143 hours in space, did not make their planned lunar landing, and came back, just barely, to remind us the incredible level of risk involved in space flight.

Tom Hanks (Jim Lovell), Bill Paxton (Fred Haise), and Kevin Bacon (Jack Swigert) all give great performances as the crew of Apollo 13, which was supposed to be the third lunar landing. The film starts before the launch, when the scheduled crew is bumped because of a health concern. Then, just before the launch, Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) gets bumped from the replacement crew, after being exposed to measles. By this point, some are believing that 13 might just be unlucky 13. But, Lovell, Haise, and Swigert were determined, Mattingly assisted greatly, and the launch went as planned. That's all that went as planned, as an explosion aboard Apollo 13, with the craft over 300,000 kilometers from Earth, left the ship low on oxygen, low on potable water, very low on electricity, and too high on carbon dioxide. With an entire flight scheduled and designed down to the smallest detail, the crew on the ship, and the entire crew back at the Houston Space Center, had to scrap everything, start over, and figure out how to avert tragedy, and can get those three men back alive.

I remember this incident, as I was ten years old in 1970. I remember being glued to the television, often holding my breath. I remember the broadcast footage, from news shows, that are shown in the movie. I remember that everything else seemed to stop. Ron Howard directed Apollo 13, and tribute movies seem to be his forte. He got this one incredibly right. The clothes, the hairstyles, the cars, the style of speaking, were all straight out of 1970, and Hanks, Sinise, Paxton, and Bacon gave us highly credible astronauts. Together, Ron Howard, the main characters, and the supporting cast (e.g., Ed Harris as Gene Krantz) created a riveting tale of incredible suspense, and they gave us one of the best depictions ever of a real historical event in a movie.

I was a child of the Space Age. When Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon, I was laying on a cold tile floor, sometime in the middle of the night, in the kitchen of my grandparents' home in Montignies-sur-Sambre, Belgium, watching Neil Armstrong step on the Moon. Even though I had trouble staying awake to see it, I remember it clearly. I remember, just as clearly, the six days of Apollo 13, and this movie got it right.

Minor trivia point: The official patch for this mission shows three golden horses, long manes flowing, flying through space from the Earth to the Moon. The flowing golden manes kind of looks like fire to me.

The quote:
Famous misquote: "Houston, we have a problem."
Actual quote: "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here", uttered by Jack Swigert to ground. Jim Lovell then uttered this similar phrase: "Houston, we've had a problem."

Overall: One of my favorite movies, and I watch it two or three times per year.

A thought: Some people question the value of the space program. I never have, and I know that is just my opinion. When Apollo 13 happened, America was dealing with Vietnam and a Cold War with Russia. But, the space program was a peaceful activity that gave everyone a chance to stop, think about reaching for the stars and for a better future. In 1971, I was back visiting relatives in Europe, and while we were all in Maastricht, The Netherlands, a Dutchman approached us, after overhearing us speak American English, and congratulated us for beating the Russians to the Moon. Apollo 13 shows us the space program at what could have been its worst moments, but were its finest hour. I am not sure how to calculate the value in that.