110 Fun Facts About Apollo 13

Which crewed Moon landing was Apollo 13 meant to be?

Third was the plan, after Apollo 11 and 12, but the crew could only swing around the Moon and head home without touching down.

Which mission did Jim Lovell fly in December 1968, before commanding Apollo 13?

Apollo 8 made Lovell one of the first three people to orbit the Moon; Apollo 13 took him back a second time, yet he never set foot on it.

What exploded aboard Apollo 13 two days into the flight?

An oxygen tank in the service module blew after a routine stir ignited damaged wire insulation inside it; the blast emptied both of the craft's oxygen tanks into space.

Which spacecraft did the Apollo 13 crew use as a 'lifeboat' after the explosion?

The lunar module, designed to keep two men alive on the Moon for about two days, became a lifeboat: Houston improvised ways for it to support three men for most of the trip home.

Who played Jim Lovell in the 1995 film Apollo 13?

Tom Hanks won the part for his knowledge of Apollo and space history, although the first script had been written with Kevin Costner in mind because he resembled Lovell.

Who directed the 1995 film Apollo 13?

Ron Howard won the Directors Guild award for Apollo 13, yet the Academy left him off its Best Director shortlist even as the film collected nine nominations.

Which famous line in the film Apollo 13 was invented by its screenwriters?

'Failure is not an option' was coined by the screenwriters after flight controller Jerry Bostick told them failure was never considered; Gene Kranz liked it enough to title his 2000 memoir with it.

Which Apollo 13 crew member was grounded days before launch after being exposed to rubella?

Ken Mattingly, the prime command module pilot, had been exposed to German measles through backup crewman Charles Duke and was replaced by his own backup; he never fell ill and later flew Apollo 16.

Which two Oscars did Apollo 13 (1995) win from its nine nominations?

Best Film Editing and Best Sound were its only wins: Braveheart took Best Picture, and the space epic even lost the visual effects prize to Babe's talking pig.

Where did the Apollo 13 command module splash down?

The South Pacific Ocean was no accident: an engine burn after rounding the Moon shortened the trip and moved the splashdown to where the main recovery fleet waited.

What was the call sign of Apollo 13's lander?

Lovell took it from Aquarius the water-bearer, not from the song in Hair as some reporters assumed.

What was the call sign of the Apollo 13 command module?

Odyssey was Lovell's pick: he wrote that he liked the word's meaning, a long voyage with many changes of fortune, which soon proved apt.

What did the Apollo 13 crew and Mission Control famously improvise from duct tape, plastic and cardboard?

The 'mailbox' was a carbon dioxide scrubber adapter that let the command module's square lithium hydroxide canisters work in the lander's round receptacles; CAPCOM Joe Kerwin read up the build instructions.

Which actor played flight director Gene Kranz in Apollo 13?

Ed Harris had already played a real space hero, astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff, before swapping the capsule for the flight director's console and earning an Oscar nomination.

What did Richard Nixon award the Apollo 13 crew when they reached Hawaii?

The Presidential Medal of Freedom went to Mission Control first: Nixon stopped in Houston on his way to Hawaii after NASA chief Thomas Paine declined the medal and proposed the controllers instead.

What was Apollo 13's intended landing site on the Moon?

Fra Mauro, a hilly region named after a crater within it, was chosen because it is thought to be debris hurled out by the giant Imbrium impact, a ready-made sample of the Moon's early history.

Which record did Apollo 13's crew hold until Artemis II flew in 2026?

Farthest from Earth, about 400,000 km: the emergency loop around the Moon carried the crew farther out than the planned landing would have, and the mark stood for 56 years.

Which everyday chore did Apollo 13's command module pilot admit mid-flight to having forgotten?

File his income tax return: the last-minute crew swap had left no time before the 15 April deadline, and Houston radioed back that being out of the country earned a 60-day extension.

Apollo 13 has long been summed up at NASA by which phrase?

'A successful failure' is NASA's own label: the Moon landing was lost, but the experience gained in getting the crew home alive counted as a win.

What was Apollo 13's mission motto?

Ex luna, scientia means 'From the Moon, knowledge'; Lovell adapted it from his alma mater's motto, and the phrase is lettered on the mission patch.

Apollo 13's crew rationed drinking water mainly to save it for what?

Cooling the craft's electronics came first: the lander's water also chilled its systems, so each man drank only about six ounces a day, and together they came home over 30 pounds lighter.

As Apollo 13's powered-down cabin fell to near freezing, what did its two would-be moonwalkers wear for warmth?

Their lunar overshoes went on after the crew ruled out spacesuits as too bulky and sweaty; the third man, who had no Moon boots and wet feet, suffered most as the cabin fell to about 3 °C.

Which Apollo 13 crew member developed a urinary tract infection on the way home?

Fred Haise ran a fever from a urinary tract infection, probably brought on by the tiny water ration; he was the first man hoisted into the recovery helicopter and needed antibiotics.

Which famous astronaut sat on the review board that investigated the Apollo 13 accident?

Neil Armstrong joined the Cortright board less than a year after walking on the Moon; its findings forced design changes, and no Apollo crew flew again for nine months.

In a first, what did NASA do with Apollo 13's spent third rocket stage?

Crash it into the Moon was the plan: the spent stage struck as a seismic experiment, Apollo 12's seismometer felt the jolt, and Lovell quipped that at least something had worked on this flight.

What hid the stars Apollo 13's crew needed to check their alignment?

Debris from the blast glinted in the sunlight like false stars, so the crew sighted on the Sun instead; the alignment proved less than half a degree out, and the long burn home went ahead.

Which manufacturer jokingly billed North American Rockwell for 'towing' Apollo 13 around the Moon?

Grumman's tongue-in-cheek bill charged for towing by the mile and for an 'additional guest in room'; North American refused to pay, noting it had ferried Grumman's craft to the Moon before for free.

Why did Apollo 13's re-entry worry Mission Control?

The blackout overran, perhaps because the capsule came in at a shallow angle, and controllers were left waiting well past the moment the crew was due to answer.

The Apollo 13 film was adapted from which 1994 book?

Lost Moon was Lovell's own account, co-written with journalist Jeffrey Kluger, and its film rights were being shopped around before the book was even written.

How were the weightless scenes in Apollo 13 filmed?

Aboard NASA's KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft, the 'Vomit Comet', cast and crew filmed in bursts of real weightlessness lasting under half a minute each, an idea Steven Spielberg suggested.

Who turned down the last-minute command module pilot role in Apollo 13 in favour of Seven?

Brad Pitt turned down the role of the last-minute command module pilot to make Seven (1995) with David Fincher; the part went to Kevin Bacon instead.

Who played the grounded prime command module pilot in the film Apollo 13?

Gary Sinise, fresh from playing Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump (1994), played the astronaut bumped from the crew by the rubella scare, who then works the simulator to find a power-up sequence.

Which actress played Marilyn Lovell in Apollo 13?

Kathleen Quinlan earned an Oscar nomination as Marilyn Lovell; the scene where her wedding ring slips down the shower drain really happened, though the real Marilyn got hers back.

What cameo does the real Jim Lovell make in the film Apollo 13?

The captain of the recovery ship is Lovell himself, who shakes hands with the actor playing him as the rescued astronauts step aboard.

How did Apollo 13's script alter the real 'Houston, we've had a problem'?

It switched the tense to 'we have' because the screenwriter felt the real wording sounded as if the trouble was already over; the snappier line later made AFI's list of 100 great movie quotes.

Which Kevin Costner epic knocked Apollo 13 off the top of the US box office after four weeks?

Waterworld, the most expensive film then made, ended Apollo 13's four-weekend run at number one in late July 1995; both came from Universal, so the studio dethroned its own hit.

Where did the three actors playing Apollo 13's astronauts train before the shoot?

The three actors spent time at the US Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, where Lovell and Apollo 15 commander David Scott, the film's technical adviser, put them through exercises in simulated modules.

Which of the director's relatives played Blanche Lovell in the film Apollo 13?

His mother played Blanche, Lovell's own mother, because the director cast his family around the film: his father is the Lovells' minister and his brother a flight controller.

How long after the oxygen tank fans were switched on did the crew hear the bang?

The bang came 95 seconds after the tank stir switches were flipped, when a short circuit in the fan wiring ignited the Teflon insulation inside tank 2; the film compresses the gap to almost nothing.

After days of cold and damp, what did Lovell say happened aboard Apollo 13 during re-entry?

It rained inside the cabin, Lovell wrote: water had beaded on every cold surface while the power was off, and the droplets flew loose as the capsule slowed in the atmosphere.

Which company built the faulty Oxygen Tank 2 as a subcontractor to North American Rockwell?

Beech Aircraft built the tanks as a subcontractor; its thermostatic switches were rated for 28 volts, but pad tests at Kennedy ran the heaters at 65 volts, welding the switches shut and cooking the wire insulation weeks before launch.

What did Apollo 13's last course correction sink in an ocean trench?

A cask of plutonium oxide for a lunar generator rode home on the lander, so the Atomic Energy Commission asked for a path that dropped it in or near the deep Tonga Trench; no leak was ever detected.

Which Canadian university's engineers worked out the tunnel air pressure that pushed Apollo 13's lander clear before re-entry?

University of Toronto engineers led by Bernard Etkin were called in by the lander's builder and worked out a pressure strong enough to push it clear, yet too weak to damage the hatch.

What was unusual about Apollo 13's mission patch, alongside Apollo 11's?

It carried no crew names, like Apollo 11's, which proved handy: nothing had to be redrawn when a crewman was swapped out days before launch. The artist based it on his own hotel mural.

What became of Apollo 13's command module?

Restored and displayed at the Cosmosphere in Kansas, the capsule had been taken apart for the accident inquiry; the same museum workshop built the spacecraft sets for the 1995 film.

Which anomaly hit Apollo 13 during launch, before the famous explosion?

A second-stage engine shut down early, about two minutes ahead of time, after violent pogo vibrations; the other four burned longer to make up, and the crew reached orbit all the same.

Which director's cameo as a congressman in Apollo 13 continued his habit of appearing in protégés' films?

Roger Corman, who gave the director his first directing job on Grand Theft Auto (1977), appears as a congressman on a VIP tour of the Vehicle Assembly Building; Corman cameos in many of his protégés' films.

Which effects house co-founded by James Cameron created Apollo 13's launch scenes?

Digital Domain built the launch from miniature models and digital effects rather than cut to archive news footage; the work earned an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Who composed the score for the 1995 film Apollo 13?

James Horner competed against himself that year: his Braveheart score was nominated in the same Oscar category, and both lost to Il Postino.

Which film did Lovell blame for his wife's pre-launch nightmare, recreated in Apollo 13?

Marooned strands three Apollo astronauts in orbit, one of them named Jim, which is why seeing it a few months before launch gave Marilyn Lovell nightmares.

Which Apollo astronaut was elected to Congress in 1982 but died before he could be sworn in?

Jack Swigert won a new Colorado seat in the House in 1982 but died of cancer a week before taking it; the state later placed his statue in the US Capitol he never got to serve in.

Lovell adapted Apollo 13's motto from the motto of which institution, his alma mater?

The US Naval Academy at Annapolis graduated Lovell in 1952, after two years at the University of Wisconsin on a Navy scheme he said was the only way he could afford college.

Which animals appear on the Apollo 13 mission patch?

The Apollo 13 patch shows three flying horses drawing the god Apollo's chariot from Earth to the Moon; artist Lumen Martin Winter adapted them from a mural he painted for New York's St. Regis Hotel.

Apollo 13 lifted off from which Kennedy pad, the same one Apollo 11 used?

Pad 39A launched every crewed Saturn V but one: Apollo 10 alone used 39B, rolling out to it while Apollo 9, launched from 39A days earlier, was still in orbit.

Why did Apollo 13 add red stripes to Lovell's spacesuit?

To tell him apart from Haise in photos: nobody reviewing Apollo 11's pictures could tell its two moonwalkers apart, and the fix came too late for Apollo 12, so Lovell's suit was first to get the stripes.

The Apollo 13 crew timed a critical 14-second engine burn with a wristwatch made by which company?

Omega: with the lander's guidance computer shut down to save power, the command module pilot timed the burn on his Speedmaster while Lovell and Haise steered by hand.

How did the Soviet Union respond to Apollo 13's emergency?

Sent ships to help: Tass reported four Soviet vessels heading for the splashdown area, and Premier Alexei Kosygin told Washington his forces would use all necessary means to help.

Which US networks aired Apollo 13's TV broadcast minutes before the accident?

None of them: the networks kept to their regular evening schedules, so Marilyn Lovell had to watch her husband's tour of the spacecraft from the viewing room at Mission Control.

What cost Swigert his seat on the 1975 joint mission with the Soviet Union?

The postal covers affair: after Apollo 15's crew flew unauthorised stamped envelopes to the Moon, investigators asked other astronauts about their own stamp deals; Swigert first denied his, then admitted it and lost the seat.

Which later mission finally landed at Apollo 13's intended site, in February 1971?

Apollo 14 reached the site on 5 February 1971: Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell spent two EVAs on the surface, hauling a cart of tools toward Cone crater, while Stuart Roosa orbited above.

How did US television treat Apollo 13's cabin broadcast, minutes before the explosion?

No network carried it, so Marilyn Lovell had to go to a VIP room at Mission Control to watch her husband's tour of the cabin. Within hours, every channel was breaking in with bulletins.

Hearing the bang, Jim Lovell first assumed Apollo 13 crewmate Fred Haise had pulled which prank?

Popping a noisy valve was a trick Haise enjoyed, since the lander's repressurisation valve went off with a bang that startled his crewmates. One look at his face told Lovell this was no joke.

Which treasured item does Marilyn Lovell drop down a shower drain in the 1995 film Apollo 13?

Her wedding ring really did slip down the drain, Jim Lovell later confirmed. In real life the trap caught it and she got it back.

Which brand of bottled water was sprayed on camera to fake the urine dump in the film Apollo 13?

Evian droplets stood in for the real thing after a computer-generated version looked too coarse. The effects team sprayed the bottle and photographed the mist.

Which actor did Jim Lovell first picture playing him in an Apollo 13 film, citing their resemblance?

Kevin Costner was Lovell's first thought, and the earliest script was written with him in mind. By the time a director signed on, another star had already asked to read it.

What did pilot Jack Swigert first think had hit Apollo 13 when the crew heard the bang?

A meteoroid striking the lander was Swigert's first guess, but he and Lovell quickly saw that the cabin was holding its air. The real damage lay behind them, out of sight.

Why were Apollo 13's astronauts told to stop dumping urine overboard on the way home?

It could alter their course, because anything vented into space pushes back like a tiny thruster. The crew stored their urine in bags instead.

How did the 1995 film Apollo 13 make the actors' breath visible in the cold cabin scenes?

They chilled the soundstages until breath misted for real. It was cold enough that the crew worked in parkas beside posted warnings about frostbite.

Which trademark garment, sewn by his wife, did flight director Gene Kranz wear during Apollo 13?

A vest was Gene Kranz's signature at his console, along with his flat-top haircut. His wife Marta sewed them in different styles and materials for the missions he directed.

Which 1995 animated hit shared its leading man with Apollo 13 and out-grossed it worldwide?

Toy Story and Die Hard with a Vengeance were the only 1995 releases to out-earn Apollo 13, which took more than $355 million around the world.

Which material insulated the fan wires that ignited inside Apollo 13's oxygen tank?

Teflon coated the wires, and an overheated ground test weeks before launch had most likely damaged it. When the fans were switched on in flight, a spark set the insulation alight.

What mishap befell the shelf holding Apollo 13's faulty oxygen tank, long before launch?

It was dropped about two inches while being lifted out of an earlier spacecraft, because one bolt had been left in place. Investigators thought the jolt may have loosened the tank's fill line.

What did NASA add to later Apollo service modules after the Apollo 13 accident review?

A third oxygen tank went in on the far side of the module from the other two, where it could be sealed off for the crew's breathing alone. An emergency battery and extra drinking water were added too.

Which December 1972 mission ended NASA's Moon landings after cuts that followed Jim Lovell's aborted flight?

Apollo 17 closed the programme after two more landings were cancelled in the pause that followed the accident. Some NASA managers feared that sooner or later a crew would be lost.

Which pope led 10,000 people in prayer for the safe return of Apollo 13's astronauts?

Paul VI led the prayers, while about ten times as many people prayed at a religious festival in India. The US Senate urged businesses to pause so that employees could pray too.

Which Navy ship recovered Apollo 13's crew, though a sister ship had to play it on film?

USS Iwo Jima had been scrapped by the time the 1995 film was shot, so her sister ship USS New Orleans stood in for the scenes at sea.

Which astronaut's need for extra training after ear surgery handed Jim Lovell's crew Apollo 13?

Alan Shepard, America's first man in space, had been grounded for years by an inner-ear disorder. Surgery cured it, and he went on to hit golf balls on the Moon.

Why had Apollo 13 left its safe free-return path around the Moon a day before the accident?

To reach its landing site, the ship had switched to a path that would no longer swing it back to Earth by default. That left the damaged craft needing an engine burn just to be sure of getting home.

Apollo 13's fuel cells made electricity by combining oxygen with which other element?

Hydrogen and oxygen react in a fuel cell to give electricity, with drinking water as the by-product. Losing its oxygen therefore cost Apollo 13 both its power and its water supply.

As Apollo 13's command ship shut down, what did Jim Lovell work out by hand for Houston to check?

Guidance alignment angles had to be copied across to the lander's computer before the command ship's went dark. Lovell did the arithmetic himself, and Mission Control confirmed his sums.

Which backup crewman caught rubella from a child and exposed Apollo 13's astronauts before launch?

Charles Duke passed the virus around the crews who trained together, and only one prime crewman lacked immunity. Two years later Duke walked on the Moon himself.

Just before the accident, Apollo 13 turned so the crew could photograph which great comet?

Bennett was bright enough to see with the naked eye that spring. The crew had just finished turning the ship for a second try at photographing it when the oxygen tank blew.

Which flight controller, famed for saving Apollo 12 after lightning, devised Apollo 13's re-entry power-up?

John Aaron rationed the power on the way home and devised a start-up sequence the dormant command module could run on its batteries alone. He had been off duty when the tank blew and was called straight in.

Which journalist co-wrote the 1994 book behind the film Apollo 13, then appeared in it as a TV reporter?

Jeffrey Kluger approached Jim Lovell about telling the story once the astronaut had retired. The crew had meant to write a book themselves, but all left NASA without starting it.

Lead flight director Gene Kranz headed which colour-named Mission Control team during Apollo 13?

White was Kranz's colour: NASA's first three flight directors chose red, white and blue as their call signs, and he became White Flight. Three other teams shared the shifts on Apollo 13.

The film Apollo 13 earned nine Oscar nominations but lost Best Picture to which other 1995 release?

Braveheart took Best Picture and four other Oscars that night, leading the field with ten nominations to Apollo 13's nine.

In 2023 the Library of Congress added Apollo 13 (1995) to which list of works to be preserved?

National Film Registry places go to no more than 25 films a year, each judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

In 2002 the film Apollo 13 became the first feature digitally remastered for which cinema format?

IMAX reissued Apollo 13 in 2002 as the first film put through its DMR remastering process, and brought it back to its giant screens for the 30th anniversary.

Which veteran CBS anchor recorded fresh news bulletins for the 1995 film Apollo 13?

Walter Cronkite appears in archive footage and also voiced new announcements, editing some of them himself so they sounded like real broadcasts of the day.

Why did Houston send Apollo 13 around the Moon instead of turning it straight back?

Its main engine was suspect after the blast, and firing it would have needed power the dying fuel cells could not promise. The crew later saw possible damage to the engine bell.

How did the film Apollo 13 shoot its parachute descent once computer graphics were ruled out?

A helicopter released a capsule under real parachutes, because the effects supervisor insisted a digital version would never look real. The scene was finished on an artificial lake at the studio.

What stood in for the Saturn V in the film Apollo 13's long-range shot of the rocket in flight?

A shop-bought model kit costing about $25 was filmed with a shaking camera, then re-shot off a monitor so that it would not look like a video game.

What did the makers of the film Apollo 13 do instead of shooting in NASA's real Mission Control?

Built their own replica on a studio lot, so exact that a NASA consultant on the film would head for the elevator at the end of the day before remembering where he was.

Which NASA emblem, not adopted until 1975, appears behind the astronauts suiting up in the film Apollo 13?

The worm logo, NASA's stylised lettering, can be seen on the glass behind the suited-up crew, though the agency only began using it years after the flight.

Which British pop star performs the vocal solos on the orchestral score of the film Apollo 13?

Annie Lennox lends her voice to the score alongside a solo trumpet, and the music earned an Oscar nomination. The album also mixes in period songs and dialogue from the film.

Which 1998 HBO miniseries retold Apollo 13 through the eyes of rival television reporters?

From the Earth to the Moon, made by the feature film's star and director, gave the flight a single episode told from the newsrooms rather than the cabin.

Whose pool-hall scenes in The Color of Money inspired the launch editing in the film Apollo 13?

Martin Scorsese cut his pool games by repeating two or three frames between shots, too few to notice. The effects team borrowed the trick to give the launch its rhythm.

The cast of the film Apollo 13 won the first ensemble film prize ever given by which awards body?

Screen Actors Guild voters introduced a prize for a whole film cast at only their second ceremony, and Apollo 13 was its first winner.

Which tense scene among the astronauts in the film Apollo 13 did Fred Haise say never happened?

An argument over blame between two crewmates was invented for drama. Haise said nobody could have foreseen that stirring the tank would cause trouble.

Which Apollo 15 commander drilled the cast of the film Apollo 13 in simulators as its technical adviser?

David Scott trained the actors in mock-ups of both spacecraft, and was impressed that each of them wanted every scene technically correct, word for word.

How many of Apollo 13's three astronauts had a wife waiting at home during the flight?

Two of them were married: Jim Lovell and Fred Haise took their wives, Marilyn and Mary, on the crew's European tour that autumn, while Jack Swigert was a bachelor.

At which stage of life did Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell begin dating his future wife, Marilyn?

In high school in Milwaukee, and she later transferred colleges to be near him. They married in 1952 and raised four children.

Which prototype Space Shuttle did Apollo 13's Fred Haise fly in glide tests in 1977?

Enterprise never reached orbit, but Haise landed it three times after it was released from its carrier aircraft. He was the only one of its four test pilots who never flew a Shuttle in space.

Apollo 13's Fred Haise first went to college on a scholarship for which subject, far from flying?

Journalism won Haise a place at a Mississippi junior college, where he also played baseball. He then signed up as an aviation cadet and became a fighter pilot.

A statue of Apollo 13's Jack Swigert stands in the US Capitol on behalf of which state?

Colorado sent the Denver-born astronaut's statue to the Capitol in 1997, and a copy was placed in a terminal at Denver's airport.

Ken Mattingly circled the Moon alone on which mission while two crewmates explored the Descartes highlands?

Apollo 16 kept Mattingly in lunar orbit for 64 circuits, and on the way home he made a spacewalk in deep space to fetch film from the side of the ship.

A temporary blood-test result kept future Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell out of which astronaut group?

The Mercury Seven were picked without Lovell because his bilirubin count was temporarily high. He passed much the same tests three years later and joined NASA's second group.

Which nickname did Pete Conrad give Apollo 13's future commander, Jim Lovell, at test pilot school?

Shaky was Conrad's teasing name for him in a test pilot class that produced three astronauts, the third being Wally Schirra.

What kind of business did Jim Lovell's family open in Lake Forest, Illinois, decades after Apollo 13?

A restaurant, Lovell's of Lake Forest, opened in 1999 and displayed memorabilia from NASA and from the film set. His son Jay, its chef, later bought it.

Which future moonwalker flew with Jim Lovell on Gemini 12, the final flight of that programme?

Buzz Aldrin made three spacewalks on that flight while Lovell commanded. When Aldrin wiped the pilot's window clean, Lovell joked about asking him to change the oil too.