How Accurate was Apollo 13 the Movie?
Five facts about the Apollo 13 movie and how they actually happened in real life
By Ana Luiza Dias
On April 17 of 1970, the World held its breath when astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise, launched themselves towards the Earth at more than 20,000 miles an hour. Soon they were fighting to survive, for six days, in a spacecraft damaged by an explosion in the oxygen tanks.
They had consumed most of their supplies, and now it all came down to the moment of re-entry. If they hit the Earth’s atmosphere at the wrong angle, they’d die in space or be scorched by the heat of re-entry. Mission controllers in Houston, Texas, agonized through the last moments of the Apollo 13 journey.
As we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the trip to the moon that almost ended in disaster, nothing is more natural than remembering the fantastic movie by director Ron Howard, Apollo 13. With Tom Hanks in a stellar performance as astronaut Jim Lovell, the movie won a pair of Oscars in 1996.
But some wonders still remained in the minds of fans. Was the movie true to what really happened? Did someone really said, “Houston, we have a problem?” Is it true that stress generated heated discussions among the crew? Was duct tape the surprise element that saved the mission?
