Houston, we have a problem! "Houston, we're in trouble!" Where did the catchphrase come from? Houston we have a problem
On April 13, 1970, on the third day of the flight, when three astronauts from the crew of the Apollo 13 manned spacecraft were at a distance of 330,000 kilometers from Earth, an oxygen tank exploded in the service module and disabled 2 out of 3 fuel cell batteries, thereby depriving the ship is able to use the main engine...
Apollo is one of NASA's largest and most famous programs. In 1961, shortly after the flight of Yuri Gagarin, US President John F. Kennedy set the task of landing a man on the moon, and this man was to be an American. But first, it was necessary to create a rocket that could put into orbit everything needed to fly to the moon and back. The famous German designer Wernher von Braun, one of the founders of rocket science, set out to solve this problem. The result of his work was the creation of "Saturn V". This rocket to this day remains the heaviest, most lifting, largest and most powerful of those created by man.
And the 3-seater Apollos, named after the ancient Greek deity, were specially created to send astronauts to the moon. Since 1968, 15 successful launches have been made in seven years.
The Apollo 13 spacecraft consisted of three main modules: a command module (call sign Odysseus), a service module, and a lunar module (call sign Aquarius). The mass of the ship at the start was about 50 tons, the height was about 15 meters, and the diameter was about 4 meters, the volume of the living compartments was almost 13 m³. The volume of food, water and regeneration units for oxygen restoration provided three astronauts with no more than 14 days of autonomous flight. Almost all the time of the flight, the astronauts were located in the command compartment, where there was all the necessary equipment for controlling the spacecraft and conducting observations. It is this command compartment that eventually returns to the ground and lands by parachute along with the entire crew. The lunar module served only for maneuvers in the immediate vicinity of the lunar surface, landing on it and subsequent takeoff. It was designed to accommodate two astronauts for 75 hours.
The crew commander was an experienced astronaut James Lovell, who by this time had already made three flights, including the flight to the Moon on Apollo 8. The command module pilot was John Swigert, the lunar module pilot was Fred Hayes. The astronauts were well trained and had excellent support from a team of engineers and scientists back on Earth.
Their flight was supposed to provide another landing on the moon.
Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970 from Merritt Island in Florida. The entry into the Earth's orbit took place in the normal mode with minimal deviations in speed and altitude. After two and a half hours of flight, the third stage of the Saturn V turned on and accelerated the Apollo to the second space velocity on the trajectory to the Moon. After the end of acceleration, the main unit (command and service modules) separated from the third stage, and Jack Swigert, having turned the ship 180 degrees, docked to the lunar module and removed it from the rocket's transport container. From that moment, in a fully assembled form, Apollo 13 entered the main phase of the flight.
After 5 days, they had a difficult landing on the moon, exciting work on the surface, and then a long journey home.
On the third day of the flight, after 47 hours of normal operation, the first signs of problems began. Sensors indicated elevated levels of liquid oxygen in Service Module Tank #2, which was a fuel oxidizer for the engines. Such indications were expected, since in zero gravity the contents of the tanks stratify, and the sensors begin to give incorrect data. To solve this problem, the ship's designers provided micro-turbines in each tank, with the help of which it is possible to mix the gas and liquid phases of the gas and thus achieve the correct readings.
But the sensor data continued to grow - the pressure in the tank increased. The command was given to start mixing in the tanks. Swigert flipped the switches and the procedure began. Sixteen seconds later, at 55:55:09 flight time, Apollo 13 shuddered from a massive explosion. Flight Commander James Lovell informs Mission Control in Houston about emergency, starting his report became famous words: "Houston, we have a problem." He talks about the voltage drop on the control panels and that after the explosion, some kind of gas flows out of the engine compartment and this jet stream changes the orientation of the ship.
Three minutes later, there is a complete loss of voltage on line B, which supplies the systems and equipment of the command module. The flight control center instructed the crew to reduce power consumption to a minimum, the crew began to turn off the power to all secondary devices, but this did not help - very soon the voltage began to drop in the A line, and the power supply system of the command module was completely out of order. The oxygen pressure in tank #2 dropped to zero, and in the damaged tank #1 it reached 50% of its values and continued to fall. This meant that the life support system of the command compartment would be able to ensure the existence of the crew for only 15 minutes - that was how much the energy of the emergency batteries was enough.
Houston operators immediately gave a remote command to turn off two of the three fuel cells, hoping to stop the two oxygen tanks from leaking. This automatically meant abandoning the plans for landing on the moon, since the service module had to have two working fuel elements for maneuvers around the moon.
It was necessary to take quick and decisive measures to save the crew - Lovell and Hayes went to the Aquarius lunar module and initiated life support systems in it, Swigert at that moment recorded all flight parameters in the ship's main computer and turned off all command module systems.
And on Earth there are dozens the best specialists NASA began emergency work on solutions for the return flight, sorting through all possible options. To their credit, it must be said that very little time was spent on this work - what usually takes weeks of complex calculations, this time was done in less than a day.
The main problem was the impossibility of using the main liquid-propellant engine of the service module, which was intended for maneuvers on the way to the moon and back. Due to the explosion of one of the oxygen tanks, its use could cause even more destruction, and such a risk was chosen to be avoided, intending to use the engine of the lunar module for all maneuvers. However, the design of the engine - and more importantly, the fuel tanks - for it was intended for one-time and short-term use near the lunar surface. The fuel supply was carried out using compressed helium, which pressed on a soft membrane inside the tank, displacing the fuel itself. Over time, the pressure in the tanks increased so much that helium broke through a specially designed diaphragm and escaped into a vacuum, after which the use of the engine became impossible.
Another problem was complications with navigation and orientation of the ship. During the explosion, the ship spun and lost its orientation, but what is most unpleasant - it was surrounded by a whole cloud of small debris, particles of skin, paint and gas. All this sparkled and shone, reflecting sunlight, and made it impossible to point to the stars.
The third and, perhaps, the most important problem was the life support of the crew members. The fact is that the lunar module was designed for two people to stay in it for a maximum of 75 hours, but now a third astronaut has joined them, and the flight time was obviously longer than planned. While oxygen and nutrition were in order, the amount of fresh water (now needed more to cool all systems) and the absorption of exhaled carbon dioxide were bad. Moreover, it soon became clear that due to the austerity of electricity (this resource was the most important for a safe return home), the cabin heating had to be turned off and the temperature began to drop catastrophically. As a result, during the entire flight, the temperature in the cockpit was about 11 ° C, and the crew members were very cold due to the lack of warm clothes and the inability to move in the cramped cockpit of the Aquarius to warm up.
NASA specialists developed several options for returning the spacecraft to Earth, but in the conditions of a modest supply of fuel and limited life support resources for the Aquarius, it was necessary to find a compromise that would ensure a faster return of living astronauts to the Earth's atmosphere. To do this, it was necessary to perform a trajectory correction, fly around the moon and accelerate on the way to the Earth. The first correction was carried out on the morning of the next day after the accident. Now the countdown to the failure of the engine of the lunar module has begun - a membrane rupture in its tanks was predicted between the 105th and 110th hours of the Apollo flight time. This event was about 40 hours away. The correction was successful, the ship lay down on the desired course and began to fly around the moon.
As Apollo 13 swept over the far side of the moon, Hayes and Swigert rushed to the windows with their cameras, greedily filming the craters rushing below them and the desert plains of the lunar seas flooded with light. Lovell had seen this on his last flight and wasn't as enthusiastic. Once again, the teasing Moon eluded him, preventing him from bathing his boots in her dust. He will never have such an opportunity again.
On the way to Earth, it was necessary to turn on the engines a second time in order to increase the speed of the ship and reduce the time the crew spent in difficult conditions with an expiring life support resource. This correction was also carried out successfully, and the astronauts rushed to the saving blue ball, which shimmered with bright, full of life colors in the midst of the ominous cosmic darkness.
The lunar module cabin had a working atmosphere: in puffs of exhaled vapor, among drops of condensate, hunched over in a cramped space, the three astronauts worked diligently, checking and rechecking instrument readings, following instructions from Earth and setting up equipment. They understood that their return home depended on their actions and the exact execution of commands from Houston.
But not everything depended on the actions of people. In the cramped cockpit of the Aquarius, which was not intended for three, the percentage of carbon dioxide was rising. The regeneration systems could not cope with its processing, and when the gas content reached 13%, there was a real threat to the life of the crew. Unfortunately, it was impossible to use the filters of the absorption system from the command module - it was de-energized. On board and at Mission Control in Houston, they frantically searched for a solution.
NASA specialist Ed Smiley became the savior - he proposed a scheme for creating an adapter for these filters from improvised materials available on the ship. First, it was tested on the ground, and then detailed instructions were given to the crew. For the adapter, they used a cooling suit shell from a lunar suit and its hoses, cardboard covers from a flight plan, a piece of Hayes towel and adhesive tape. Lovell reported back to Earth: "It doesn't look very nice, but it seems to work..." Crazy hands worked great, and soon the carbon dioxide content began to fall, the astronauts breathed more freely.
But ahead was the most difficult and crucial stage of the return: the last correction of the trajectory, the transition to the command module, undocking and direct entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
Before the third adjustment operation, Apollo 13 suffered a new failure - one of the batteries of the lunar module landing stage suddenly exploded, the voltage dropped slightly, but Houston considered this to be non-critical and no emergency action was required.
The crew successfully carried out a trajectory correction and at 108 hours of flight, a membrane ruptured in the lunar module tank, and the engine, having completed all the tasks assigned to it, was finally useless. On April 17, the last trajectory correction was carried out with the help of low-powered lunar attitude control thrusters. The astronauts began to move the necessary equipment and supplies to the command module in preparation for landing. It was 137 hours of their flight.
After Lovell, Swigert and Hayes moved into the Odyssey, they needed to undock from the useless service bay. This complex operation, which included two turns, went brilliantly, and through the windows, the astronauts were finally able to see what happened to the service module. One of the panels, about four meters long and more than one and a half meters wide, covering the service compartment systems, was torn out by the explosion, the engine nozzle was crumpled, almost all the equipment in this part of the compartment was disabled.
The last operation was farewell to the Aquarius lunar module, which served as home to three astronauts over the past four days. The hatches between the modules were battened down, the tightness of the connection and the atmosphere inside the command module were checked, all life support systems were powered and worked normally. It remained only to undermine the pyrobolts of the connection and wave the handle to the smoothly receding Aquarius, which was never destined to fulfill its main mission and visit the moon.
On April 17 at 18:07:41 (142:56:46 flight time) Apollo 13 splashed down safely 7.5 kilometers from the waiting vessel of the rescue team. All crew members were rescued and airlifted to the Hawaiian Islands.
Lovell, Hayes, and Swigert, with the help of NASA ground crews, of course, made it out alive in a mess no one else had ever been through before. The Houston astronauts and ground crews were awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, for their courage and exceptionally professional work.
Perhaps it is worth noting that this accident, which came very close to the status of a space catastrophe, served the three Americans in good stead. Due to the fact that the trajectory of the free flight of the Moon was used to save them, the Apollo 13 spacecraft unscheduledly set a record for the removal of a manned vehicle from the Earth - 401,056 km, and its crew became the most famous in the entire history of NASA flights.
No one has ever flown so far before them.
The dry statement of the fact “Houston, we have problems” can contain a whole gamut of feelings: from despair to irony.
Where does the phrase "Houston, we have a problem" come from?
For the first time, a character from the American film Robinson Crusoe on Mars addressed Houston, unknown at that time to most Russians, for the first time in 1964 with a request for help. The second well-known attempt to attract the attention of the same Houston refers to the real events of 1970 during the accident on the American manned spacecraft "Apollo-13". This phrase was said by the pilot of the command module, John Swigert. In American colloquial speech, and later in Russian, these words entered after the film "Apollo 13", based on real events, where they are spoken by the hero of Tom Hanks, the ship's commander James Lovell. It was after this film that the fact became well-known that Houston was by no means a specific person (and not even the American singer Whitney Houston, which was the subject of many jokes), but the NASA flight control center. Thus, the phrase "Houston, we have a problem" originally meant the presence of really serious difficulties. The expression that became stable was finally fixed after being used in a number of space-themed films, for example, in the famous Armageddon.
In reality, the phrase English language sounded in the past tense, indicating that the problems have already been solved: "We've had a problem." In the film Apollo 13, and then everywhere, the present tense began to be used: "We have a problem."
How the expression is currently used
The appeal to Houston does not lose ground in Russia, despite the change of generations. This is evidenced by the fact that in 2015 the young singer Yulianna Karaulova’s song “Houston” appeared in the repertoire, in which the presence of problems is still stated, now between a man and a woman. Speaking about her song, the artist emphasized that the expression is familiar to her and she uses it regularly.
Traveling to other planets has long excited the minds of people. Films about the adventures of astronauts began to be shot back in the 20th century, although the technologies of that time did not yet allow, as they do today, to show a colorful and reliable picture of another world. But the beginning of space exploration fueled interest in science fiction and gave directors a powerful incentive to develop this theme in their works. Robinson Crusoe on Mars was made in 1964. He talks about the flight of two astronauts to Mars. During an unsuccessful landing, one of the explorers of the Red Planet dies, and Commander Chris Draper remains in the desert world only in the company of a small monkey who flew in with them. But the man does not despair and begins his struggle for survival. It was in this picture that the phrase “Houston, we have problems” that later became widely known was first heard.
"Lost"
In 1969, another one about space flights, Lost, was released. It tells the story of American astronauts who, after completing a mission, crash into orbit with a limited supply of oxygen. While people in space tried to survive, NASA hastily developed methods to save them. As a result, with the involvement of the USSR spacecraft, two astronauts can be saved. "Lost" also featured "Houston, we're in trouble!".
Apollo 13
However, the appeal to Houston became truly famous after the astronauts of the Apollo 13 manned spacecraft returned to Earth. Due to the explosion of an oxygen tank and a series of subsequent breakdowns, the astronauts were stuck on a ship with a limited supply of oxygen and drinking water. NASA did not have a clear plan for their rescue, and all emerging emergency situations were resolved by specialists from the space agency in real time. The phrase "Houston, we have a problem" was said by one of the crew members, reporting to Earth about the breakdown. The flight of Apollo 13 took place a few months after the release of The Lost, so it is possible that the astronaut repeated what his “colleague” who found himself in a similar situation said. The Apollo 13 mission that nearly ended in disaster served as the basis for a film of the same name, which tells about the courage of the astronauts, the professionalism and dedication of NASA employees. Phrase-
American spacecraft flies to the moon. On the third day of the flight, a crew member starts mixing in tanks with liquid oxygen and hydrogen. Suddenly, the second oxygen tank explodes and two of the command module's three fuel cells fail. "Houston, we have a problem," the ship's commander reports to mission control.
After two successful manned flights to the Moon, the third flight was supposed to be an easy, predictable space walk. But instead, April 1970 almost became a black month in the history of American astronautics. When an oxygen tank exploded aboard the spacecraft, the accident forced the cancellation of the lunar landing and threatened the return of three astronauts to Earth. What happened next? In 1995, the audience was reminded of this by the director's excellent biopic Ron Howard, named after the ill-fated ship " Apollo 13 ».
When an American has an amazing adventure, he usually writes a book about it - the sooner the better. Civilians immediately enter into a contract with the publishing house, the military - as soon as they retire. However, not everyone is in a hurry with revelations and revelations. If the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, published his autobiography in 1973 (we recall that his flight on Apollo 11 took place in 1969), then the commander of Apollo 13, James Lovell, could not find time to write for almost twenty years. books about his most famous flight. After retiring in 1973, it wasn't until 1992 that he, in collaboration with journalist Jeffrey Kluger, began writing a documentary titled The Lost Moon. And his book became a Hollywood sensation even before it was completed.
Generally speaking, nothing stood in the way of making an epic Apollo 13 movie long before Lovell picked up a pen. But even when we are talking about a well-known and well-documented story, Hollywood people prefer that the film be based on a specific book that sets a point of view on events, contains unique details and provides copyright protection for the future picture (everyone can write a script based on well-known information, but an autobiography can be filmed only the one who bought the rights to it). Therefore, as soon as it became known that Lovell and Kluger were writing Lost Moon, Hollywood immediately organized an auction for the film rights to a potential bestseller.
Ron Howard on the set of Apollo 13
For those producers who were 40-50 years old in the early 1990s, the commander of Apollo 13 was not just a famous cosmonaut, but a great American, almost on a par with the crew of Apollo 11, which overtook the USSR in the space race. Therefore, many of them fought for the right to make a film about Lovell, and in this battle, the most devoted fan of astronautics won. Imagine Entertainment's producer Michael Bostic was born into a family of a space program participant and grew up in the same Houston where the American manned flight control center is located. So Bostick convinced the founders of Imagine, producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard that they must by all means buy the rights to Luna.
Grazer and Howard did not immediately succumb to the persuasion. Their previous joint tapes were not special effects, but acting productions like " Splash" and " parents”, and the producer and director did not want to break the tradition and put on a picture in which much had to depend on the reliability of the video stunts. But after reading the synopsis of Luna and talking to Lovell, they realized that the Apollo 13 saga is not about gravity, short circuits and fuel cells, but about people on board the ship and on Earth who performed miracles. courage, professionalism and ingenuity to turn disaster into triumph. So Imagine won the auction by paying $150,000 upfront and promising to shell out another $700,000 if the book was published and became a bestseller.
Wait for this, however, the studio was not going to. Work on the script began immediately after the signing of the contract, and the book and film were created in parallel, based on Lovell's memoirs, the stories of his wife Marilyn, interviews with participants in the lunar program, and documentary evidence (including surviving recordings of Apollo 13 conversations with Earth).
Initially, two Texas journalists who debuted in feature films worked on the script for Apollo 13 - William Broyles Jr.(future screenwriter " Outcast" and " Flags of our fathers") and Al Reinert Oscar nominee for documentary 1989 "For All Mankind," which recounted the history of the Apollo program.
When they shoveled a huge amount of material, reduced it to a two-hour picture, the final gloss was brought by a more experienced screenwriter and director John Sales(author of the script "Night Skies", which formed the basis of the script for Spielberg's " alien"). Ron Howard was delighted with his work, but Sales had to be content with praise and a large fee. His contribution to the text was not great enough for the Hollywood Writers Guild to allow his name to be placed in the credits next to the names of Broyles and Reinert.
On the set of Apollo 13
The most difficult task facing the trio of co-authors was to compose a text in almost foreign language- in NASA's "bird language" of technical terms and space jargon. To make the picture understandable, the script was scattered replicas explaining what is happening in words understandable to the audience. Some of them were put into the mouths of TV journalists telling Americans in 1970 about the accident on Apollo 13.
Also a problem for the writers was, oddly enough, the heroism of the astronauts. According to the memoirs of the expedition members and the records of their negotiations, there was not a single significant conflict on board during the entire flight. Knowing full well that only well-coordinated work would save them, the astronauts controlled themselves and strictly followed the orders of the commander and the MCC. It was worthy of respect and imitation, but at the same time it was boring and not dramatic enough for a feature film. After all, if the characters do not succumb to fear, then the audience is not infected by their emotions and is not fully aware of the danger that threatens the characters. Therefore, in the script, the astronauts were made slightly mentally weaker than they actually were.
Frame from the film "Apollo 13"
This decision also affected the casting. Lovell hoped to be played Kevin Costner, very similar to an astronaut in his best years. Howard, however, offered the role to his old friend and big fan of astronautics. Tom Hanks. Hanks after " Sleepless in Seattle », « Philadelphia" and " Forrest Gump" became a global superstar, and it was not the first time for him to play the hero of America. But his Lovell was more human, physically weak, and emotionally vulnerable than the "unshakable superman" that Costner would have been. And this was exactly the kind of hero that Howard wanted to show in his film - a man who conquers his fears and doubts, and not a stone idol who does not care about anything.
For the same reason, the roles of astronauts in the film received Kevin Bacon(Reserve Command Module Pilot Jim Swigert) Bill Paxton(Lunar Module Pilot Fred Hayes) and Gary Sinise(for medical reasons, the main pilot of the command module, Ken Mattingly, who remained on Earth) - bright, charismatic, courageous stars with an emotional wormhole. On the contrary, the most "unshakable" actor of the picture Ed Harris became not an astronaut, but flight director Gene Krantz. In the emotional drawing of the film, he was the rock against which the waves raised by the other lead actors were breaking.
Frame from the film "Apollo 13"
Not essential for the main plot, but important for the “humanization” of the Apollo 13 story, the director gave the role of Marilyn Lovell Kathleen Quinlan from the music biopic Oliver Stone The Doors (1991). Howard also filmed all his relatives in the film - brother Clint Howard (MCP operator Cy Liebergot), mother Jean Spigle-Howard (mother of James Lovell), father Rance Howard (priest of the Lovell family), as well as wife Cheryl Howard and daughter Bryce Dallas Howard ( extras in the scene where the astronauts say goodbye to their loved ones). In turn, the real James Lovell played the captain of an aircraft carrier, who in the final part of the picture welcomes astronauts who have safely returned to Earth.
Even at the screenplay stage, Howard had to answer an extremely important question: “How to shoot the levitation scenes in zero gravity?” The obvious and traditional solution was to hang the actors on thin cables, but this approach, according to the director, did not create a sufficiently reliable picture.
Frame from the film "Apollo 13"
As a result, Howard's answer prompted Steven Spielberg. He suggested using the NASA Airborne Laboratory aboard the Boeing KC-135. When such an aircraft takes off high into the sky and then dives to the ground, weightlessness occurs in its cockpit for several tens of seconds. Usually this laboratory is used for physics experiments and astronaut training, but Spielberg noted that it could be used for filming if an Apollo set was built in the plane. Of course, this meant that the film could not have many minutes of uninterrupted "weightless" fragments, but Howard still intended to edit the picture "finely" enough to emphasize its drive.
Using the KC-135 was expensive and technically difficult, and the cameramen, set designers, and lighting staff had to work hard to make sure that scenes shot in an aerial set were indistinguishable from those shot in exactly the same set at Universal Studios in Hollywood ( fragments in which no one flew through the air were created on the ground). Still, the aerial footage, which lasted almost four hours in total, was cheaper, easier, and more believable than simulating weightlessness with tethers and computer graphics. In addition, the actors on board the Boeing KC-135 were able to fully feel like cosmonauts, and after these flights, the rocketmen who consulted the picture were imbued with respect for the Hollywood people, and in the future they worked with Californians not as with "alien", but as with "their own" .
Frame from the film "Apollo 13"
The latter was extremely important, since the filmmakers had to understand literally every detail of the expedition, and this was impossible without full cooperation with NASA. Astronauts, Mission Control staff, space engineers, high officials all helped Howard and his team recreate the tragedy and triumph of Apollo 13 for spectators and posterity. Most often, NASA support was used by decorators, computer graphics artists and actors. Jack Swigert did not live to see the film, but all the other key members of the expedition and their families spent a lot of time with the stars of the tape so that they could reincarnate in their characters (Bacon had to be inspired by recordings of television interviews and conversations with people who knew Swigert).
Initially, Howard, in the Hollywood space tradition, planned to make extensive use of real NASA footage in the film. But after searching for them in the archives, he found that they were of too poor quality to be included in the 1995 film. Therefore, fragments such as close-ups of the rocket launch were meticulously recreated using miniature models and computer graphics. This made it possible to create footage that was impossible to shoot in reality (at least before the advent of super-fireproof flying cameras) and that no one had ever seen before. Some of these snippets made such an impression on agency staff that they asked for them to be used in their training materials.
Frame from the film "Apollo 13"
In order to temporarily become astronauts and employees of the MCC, it was not enough for the actors to read the script and get acquainted with their prototypes. Hanks, Bacon and Paxton passed under Lovell short course novice cosmonaut, and then, together with colleagues who joined them, who played ground specialists, took a course in space physics and figured out the basics of spacecraft control. Howard wanted his actors to understand every line they uttered, no matter how tricky it was. Of course, they got much more pleasure from trying on spacesuits than from studying parabolic trajectories!
Howard's primary artistic reference was the 1983 painting " What do you need guys”, which tells about the first steps of American astronautics. This tape supplied Philip Kaufman, won four minor Oscars and was hailed as a modern Hollywood classic, but it also failed at the box office. With a budget of $25 million, it earned just $21 million and nearly killed the studio that produced it, The Ladd Company, which worked in tandem with Warner Brothers. Therefore, the success of the 52 millionth Apollo 13 was by no means guaranteed. However, Howard and Grazer believed in their space story and their star actors. And they did not disappoint.
Frame from the film "Apollo 13"
Unlike The Boys, Apollo 13, released on June 30, 1995, went around the world with great success. The picture earned 355 million dollars and rave reviews from viewers and critics. Both of them appreciated how carefully Howard treated historical facts(except for the slight deheroization of the astronauts) and what a fascinating, pathos and touching picture he managed to create. In turn, film academics nominated the film for nine Oscars and awarded the tape prizes only in the categories of "best sound" and "best editing".
Is the phrase “Houston, we have a problem” that has become an integral part of the American language a popular movie quote? Many believe that they are not, since these are words that were spoken during the expedition, and not invented by the scriptwriters. But what Lovell actually said was not “Houston, we have a problem,” but “Houston, we had a problem.” He was referring to the thunderous explosion of the tank and only later realized that the "problem" had just begun. In the future, his words began to be misquoted, and "Apollo 13" wrote them into the history of cinema in a distorted form.
So this is still a quote not from Lovell, but from screenwriters who knew how it really was, but preferred to make the astronaut a little more perspicacious than he was in reality. Well, not the worst compensation for replacing Kevin Costner with Tom Hanks. And the rarest case when in the key phrase of the key scene of a film based on true events, Hollywood people distorted just one word. Oh, it would always be like this...
