On this day in April 13, 1970

[LateNight]

This day in history

April 13, 1970: Apollo 13 Tells Houston, 'We've Got a Problem'

1970: Manned space flight has become so routine that it is easy to forget that it’s inherently dangerous to stuff astronauts inside a cramped capsule and blast them into the heavens on top of a Saturn V rocket. The Apollo 13 mission reminds us just how vulnerable we are.

Apollo 13, with astronauts James Lovell Jr., John Swigert Jr. and Fred Haise Jr. aboard, was on its way to the moon to perform the third lunar landing in a planned series of seven when, about 56 hours into the mission, an oxygen tank blew up, knocking out the command module’s electricity, light and water supply. “Hey, Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” Lovell told mission control, adding that some kind of gas was escaping outside the spacecraft. It was oxygen, and the mission quickly shifted from landing on the moon to getting the astronauts back alive. At the time, Apollo 13 was roughly 200,000 miles from Earth.