Here is a transcript of the NASA film "Houston, we've got a problem" of Apollo 13. I've tried to be as faithful as possible to the original, so please forgive me if I've made any errors. This tape was expecially difficult to transcribe as there is a lot of recorded speach (often very noisy). For some of the noisy sentences I used words that sound most like what I heard, even though the sentence may not make sense. Anything in square brackets are my comments. Anything in round brackets is text appearing on the screen, in double quotes is voice from astronauts and mission control, and the rest is the narrator. I have not attempted to identify who the speakers are. Thanks to Anthony Haukap (awh@juno.com) for corrections in fifth paragraph. Steven S. Pietrobon, Small World Communications, 6 First Avenue Payneham South SA 5070, Australia fax +61 8 7117 1416 steven@sworld.com.au http://www.sworld.com.au/ (NASA Seal) "This little tape recorder has been a big benefit for us on passing through the time away on our transit out to the Moon. And its err, rather odd to see it floating like this in the, in Odyssey while its playing the, the theme from 2001." April 13th, 1970. The mood could only be described as relaxed. Apollo 13, man's fifth Lunar mission. The third scheduled to land on the Moon, continued its tranquil coast. "This is the crew of Apollo 13. Wish everybody there a nice evening and a, we're just about to close out our inspection of Aquarius and get back to a pleasant evening in Odyssey. Goodnight." "13, we got one more item for you when you get a chance. We'd like you to err, stir up your cryo tanks. In addition err, have a shaft and trunnion," "OK." "for a look at the comet Benedict [?] if you need it." "OK, stand by." [static] "OK Houston, we've had a problem here." "This is Houston, say again please." "Passin' it." "Ahh, Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main B bus undervolt." "Roger, main B undervolt. OK, stand by 13, we're looking at it." "And we had a pretty large bang associated with the err, caution and warning there." (Apollo 13) "And as I recall, main B was the one that err, had an Amp spike on it err, once before." ("Houston, we've got a problem") "And in our mirror err, we're starting to err, go ahead and button up the tunnel again." April the 11th, 1970. Launch day. The crew of Apollo 13. Jim Lovell, commander and veteran of three previous missions. He had orbited the Moon Christmas 1968 on Apollo 8. Fred Haise, his first time up, Lunar Module pilot. Jack Swigert, Command Module pilot. Three days ago he was on the backup crew. Now he replaced Ken Mattingly. Mattingly had been dropped from the mission because he had been exposed to german measles. Hw would watch the launch from Houston's mission control. "Auto sequence initiated Flight." "Roger." "Flight, Booster." "Go." "SIVB pre- press complete." "Rog." "Flight, Booster. S1C prepress complete, and we're on internal power and we're go." "Roger. How's it look EECom? You got your spacecraft..." "Looks good Flight." "OK." "MCC recorder to flight speed." "Ignition Flight." "Roger." "Clock start Flight." "Roger." "That's it, go all engines." "Rog." "OK Fido, how does it look?" "Looks good here Flight. Good agreement." "OK Booster, how do you look?" "S1C looks good Flight." "OK Capcom, we're go here on the ground." "OK, we're go at one Capcom." "Cabin relieving Flight." "Roger." "Booster, how do you look?" "We look good Flight. We're go." "OK Fido?" "We're go Flight. Looks good here." "Guidance, how does it look?" "Good Flight." "OK EECom, GNC?" "Looks good Flight." "Looks good Flight." "OK Surgeon?" "Looks fine." "Through max Q, and we're go Flight." "Roger, Booster." "Go for staging Capcom." "Confirm inboard out Flight." "Roger." "Staging Flight." "Roger." "Flight, Fido. Trajectory confirms staging." "Roger." "Flight, Booster. That inboard out was way early." "OK." "Flight. Confirm. Number five engine down." "Rog." "Booster, you don't see any problem with that though do you?" "Ahh, negative. Not right now Flight. All the other engines are go." The next step in a routine of Lunar flight was to burn out of Earth orbit toward the Moon. Then, pull free of the third stage and dock with the Lunar Module Acquarius. At the controls of the Command Module Odyssey, Jack Swigert. "We've hard docked ahh, Houston." "Roger, understand, hard dock. Good deal." They pulled Acquarius away from the Saturn third stage, the SIVB. "OK, I can ahh, I can see the SIVB now out the hatch window." Odyssey and Aquarius moved away from Earth toward the Moon. (FLIGHT DIRECTOR [Checklist attached to console] [console] CSM EECOM [underlined in red] 0443 EPS COMM/LAUNCH TAB 0613 CSM EPS CRYO 0618 EPS High Density [handwritten] CSM G&C [underlined in red] ...) "OK Houston, we've had a problem here." "Flight, Guidance." "Go Guidance." "We've had a hardware restart. I don't know what it was." "Yeah." "Ahh, Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main B bus undervolt." "You see an AC bus undervolt there Guidance? Err EECOM?" "Negative Flight." "I believe the crew reported it." "We got a main B undervolt." "We may have an instrumentation problem Flight." "Rog." "And we had a pretty large bang associated with the ahh, caution and warning there." (VOICE OF ASTRONAUT JACK SWIGERT) "Ahh, the sensation I had ahh, that I had felt a vibration accompanying the bang ahh, not a large vibration of shudder." "Is there any ahh, kind of leads we can give them, or are we looking at instrumentation? We got a real problem or what?" "We're reading ahh, zero in two pressure in fuel cell one and thirteen PSI on ahh, fuel cell 302 pressure." "OK err, what do you wanna do? Open circuit fuel cell one and two?" "That's right Flight." (VOICE OF ASTRONAUT FRED HAISE) "...shutdown ahh, ahh, the reactants valve and I ahh, asked for a reconfirmation since ahh, when you do that its alread., irreversible. If you shut one of these things down they ahh, ahh, only can be restarted from ahh, ground support equipment." "You know, that's, that's a significant G&C. It looks to me looking out the ahh, hatch that we are venting something." "We are, we are venting something out the, into the ahh, into space." "OK, let's everybody think of the kind of things we'd be venting. G&C, you got anything that looks abnormal on your system?" "Negative Flight." "How about you ECOM? See anything ahh, with the instrumentation you got that could be venting?" "That's affirm Flight. Now you look at the system Flight as far as venting is concerned." "OK, let's start scanning." "Here is a bulletin from ABC News. The Apollo 13 spacecraft has had a serious power supply malfunction that could cause the Lunar landing mission to be terminated early." "I assume you called in your backup ECOMs?" "Flight, say again." "You called in your backup ECOMs now, see if we can get some more brain power on this thing." "We got one here." "Rog." "At the moment the astronauts are continuing to try to isolate their trouble. Late reports says the spacecraft is operating on battery power alone, all unnecessary equipment has been turned off." "OK, now let's everybody keep cool. We got ahh, LM still attached. LM spacecraft's good, so if we need ahh, to get back home we got a LM to do a good portion of it with. OK, let's make sure that we don't do anything that's going to blow our CSM electrical power with the batteries or that will cause us to loose the main or ahh, the fuel cell number two. OK, we wanna keep the O2 on that kind of stuff working. We'd like to have RCS, but we got the Command Module system, so we're in good shape if we need to get back home. Let's solve the problem and let's not make it any worse by guessing." (VOICE OF ASTRONAUT JIM LOVELL) "My concern was increasing all the time. It went from `I wonder what this is gonna to do to the landing.' to `I wonder if we can get back home again.'" "OK, karman karma makeo." "Flight, go ahead." "I think the best thing we can do right now is start power down." "Right about then it ahh, it was quite apparant to me that ahh, it was just a question of time that the Command Module was gonna be dead." "You don't wanna get fuel cell pumps off do you?" "We can do that on fuel cell number one Flight." "OK, well let's make sure we don't blow the whole mission." "Ohh, the thing that concerns me is starting to stow equipment. We, we had a problem, we don't know the cause of the problem." "Flight, I have got a feeling we've lost two fuel cells. I hate to put it that way but ahh, I don't know why we lost them. It doesn't all tag up." "Network from Flight." "Flight, Network." "Bring me up another computer in the RTCC will you." "Ahh, we got ahh, one machine on the RTCC and we got dual safety downstairs." "OK, I want another machine up in the RTCC and I want a bunch of guys capable of running D logs down there." "Roger that." "What all this means is only speculation at this point. First, though there has been some tumbling or rotation of the spacecraft, the astronauts do not appear to be in any immediate danger." "I'll tell you what. Ahh, G&C can you get somebody in the backroom to try to figure out what the equivalent delta-v is we're getting, so that we can see if we can backtrack to see if we can figure out what's venting." "Rog. We'll give it a try Flight." "OK." "When I looked up and saw both oxygen pressures, one absolutely zero, the other one going down, err it, it dawned on me and I'm sure Jack and Fred about the same time, that we were indeed in serious trouble." "The only way to survive the situation was to transer to the LM." "Flight, ECOM." "Go ahead ECOM." "The pressure in O2 tank one is all the way down to 297. You better think about getting in the LM, or using the LM systems." "I'd say this is the serious err, situation that we ever had in manned spaceflight." (CHRISTOPHER KRAFT, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, MANNED SPACECRAFT CENTRE) "We'll always call the LM a good lifeboat under those circumstances." (Press Conference, April 13, 1970) "If at anytime in the mission, however, the LM had separated, and we would gotten ourselves into a rendezvous situation, or a the, the Command Module being around the Moon, then what you say is absolutely true. It would, it would be a fatal situation." "Telemetry from Flight." "Go ahead Flight." "I want you to get some guys figuring minimum power in the LM to sustain life." The accident had occurred 200,000 miles from Earth. Lovell, Swigert, and Haise rode on the Lunar Module, attached to a lifeless Command Module. Apollo 13 started as a mission of scientific exploration. It was now a matter of survival. Since the Command Module was dead, except for the oxygen and power hoarded for re-entry, the guidance platform of Aquarius, designed to land-on and take-off from the Moon would have to be used. "The first milestone, and I consider this after the accident I guess, more or less the survival now. The first milestone was to get the alignment on the LM platform. Alignments are important it, you know, because without knowing exactly which way the attitude of the spacecraft is in space, there's no way to tell how to burn, or how to ma., use the engines of the spacecraft to get the prop., the proper trajectory to come home." (SIGURD A. SJOBERG, DIRECTOR OF FLIGHT OPERATIONS) "The position we are in now, Earth-Moon plane, we have to go around the, the ahh, the Moon to get back, if we are going to use the descent engine. You, you would have had enough capability with the SPS engine, but of course we can't really use that now. So we have to go to the back side of the Moon to come back." To get into the correct orbit around the Moon the crew had burned out of a trajectory that would automatically bring them back to Earth. They would have to get back onto a safe course toward Earth. "You need put it through a `throttle to min' also Flight." "Throttle to min?" "Yes, she's 29 percent now roughly." "First maneuver was very good, was ahh, completed on time and because it was a manual burn we had a three man operation. Jack would ahh, take care of the time, he'd tell us when to light-off the engine, when to stop it. Fred handled ahh, pitch maneuver, I handled the roll, roll maneuver, and I pushed the button to start and stop the engines." "Acquarius, you're go for the burn." "40 percent." "OK Aquarius, you're looking good." "Auto shut down." The first problem was solved, they were back on the path to Earth. But there were many other problems to be solved. From a building at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center, systems experts coordinated the coast-to-coast effort to get the crew back. One of the big problems was consumables. There would be enough to eat and drink, but in space there are other factors; oxygen to breath, electrical power to keep the spacecraft alive, water to cool the equipment and keep it operating. "What we'll be doing 'till we get them back on the water is concentrating on everything that is de., their, their lives are dependent upon at the moment, rather than worrying about the accident, 'cause there's nothing we can do about that now. It, it appears at the present time that everything is under control, and that ahh, we have a safe situation at the moment." "Hey, I wanna say you guys are doing real good work." "So are you guys Jack." (GLYNN LUNNEY, FLIGHT DIRECTOR) "We are about 70 hours from home and ahh, we think we have ahh, ahh, the situation in control. We projected the ahh, consumables as I've described and ahh, we have a plan for carrying out the rest of the mission, but ahh, ahh, there's going to be no relaxation at all as far as that goes, from now until splash." There was a key decision to be made before Apollo 13 went behind the Moon. Where to bring them down. Their present course would take them to the Indian Ocean where recovery would be difficult. A burn to bring them home quicker would take them to the Pacific Ocean near the recovery forces. Bringing them home even faster would place them in the South Atlantic, again away from recovery forces. It was decided to take them to the Pacific. "Over in ahh, the simulators, both here and at the cape, and at the contractors that err, continuously, ever since err, last night." (GERALD GRIFFIN, FLIGHT DIRECTOR) "We've tried to simulate virtually everything that we've had the crew do that ahh, that is non-normal, that they've done, and ahh, we've proven most everything that we ahh, been able ahh, to run on the simulator prior to passing it up to them, but maybe some details are not done, at least we've checked the feasibility of everything we've done. We'll continue to do that." They passed one hundred, thirty seven miles from the Moon. For Lovell it was the second time that he had seen the Moon so near, but there was no time for contemplation, there was another critical burn coming. "OK, let's get the, let's get the cameras put away." "Cut-off confirmed." "Result, you have work to ourselves." And in Houston, the newsmen poured in to tell an anxious world the story. "Well, that was going along with the ignition slide, then I thought that..." Shortly after Apollo 13 had separated from the Saturn third stage, the stage had been sent onto a trajectory toward the Moon. Its impact would be recorded by the seisometer left by Apollo 12. "By the way ahh, Acquarius, we see the results now from ahh, twelve's seisometer. Looks like your booster just hit the Moon and its err, rockin' it a little bit. Over." "Well at least something worked on this flight." "I'm sure glad we didn't have ahh, a LM impact, too." "Jim, you are go for the burn, go for the burn." "Right, understand, go for the burn." "Guidance OK?" "We're good Flight." "Control OK?" "We're OK Flight." "Telemetry?" "We're go Flight." "INCO OK?" "We're good Flight." "Ground confirms ignition." "Go burn, 40 percent." "Acquarius, Houston. You're looking good." "Roger." "Shutdown." "Roger, shut- down." "I say, that was a good burn." "Acquarius, another one to power down as soon as possible." "Understand." To conserve the electric power and cooling water, the crew shutdown all but the vital life sustaining systems of the LM. "I think the LM spacecraft is in excellent shape and its fully capable of ahh, getting the crew back." (EUGENE KRANZ, FLIGHT DIRECTOR) "Ahh, I think as we've found before, everytime we've put the LM spacecraft through a test, its always done much more than it was guaranteed to do, and I think this is ahh, good case in point." Conserve the consumables, cooling water, electric power. "The LM water gun was leaking and ahh, we shut that off. Ahh, I guess it leaked about a quart of water out of it, I would estimate. But it took me about two days to get my feet dry and of course its, I think you all were aware that the temperatures were going down in both vehciles and that ahh, it made for for very chilly feet for a couple of days." [Moving electronic sign on building] (...CREW AND GOTTEN INSTRUCTIONS FROM GROUND EXPERTS T...) [Newspaper advertisement] (Evening Standard, MOON SHOT LIFE AND DEATH DRAMA) "?" [Newspaper headline] (WE'RE NOT CONCERNED) (FIFTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PRAYER SERVICE FOR ASTRONAUTS AT 12:10 TODAY, DR. BRYANT M. KIRKLAND) (TODAY 10 A.M., SPECIAL PRAYER FOR APOLLO 13) "Lord, your astronauts will come back safe." "If I may be serious for one moment and ask the entire audience for a moment of prayer for the crewmen of the Apollo 13. We'll hold silence for a moment please." "RCS-A stands at six two percent and B at six two percent." "I say, we've gone a hell of a long time without any sleep." "We ought to start thinking about getting us back to sleep again because ahh, I ahh, I didn't get any sleep last night at all." "...Command Module just slowly kept going down in temperature until I think err, just prior to re-entry ahh, it was down to about 38 degrees. And along with that there was a, a sort of chilling ahh, coldness. The walls were perspiring, the windows were completely wet, and it err, it wasn't too healthy. I recall that we went to get some hot dogs one day and it was like reaching into the freezer for them, for the food." "If you want my opinion how they handled the situation when it happened, they handled it exactly liked we expected them too. They, everybody's well on top of it as anybody could be, with knowing what we know, do, which is not very much, I'll have to admit." (DONALD K. SLAYTON, DIRECTOR OF FLIGHT CREW OPERATIONS) "But I think they did everything right within the knowledge that was available to us and ahh, in a timely fashion which is what err, all we expect of them. They did a beautiful job of it." "We actually had a third little sleep restraint which Fred goes in, put on, and buttoned up, and kept a little bit warm." The astronauts faced another problem, their own exhaled breath. The Lithium Hydroxide chemical to take Carbon Dioxide out of the air was not sufficient in the Lunar Module. They would have to adapt the canisters from the Command Module to fit the hoses in the LM. On the ground, an adapter was fashioned from materials the crew had available in the LM. Cardboard from a checklist, plastic bags, and tape. After checkout in an enviromental chamber, the directions for construction were sent up to Aquarius. "At this point in time, I think the partial pressure of Carbon Dioxide was err, reading about fifteen millimetres, and we constructed two of these things and put them on line and I think within an hour the err, partial pressure of CO2 was down to two tenths." "Well you see that err, survival err, err, now became one of ahh, initiative and ingenuity and, and it was one which the ground continually helped us err, go on. We had all kinds of people on the ground trying to think up ways of, of extending our lifetime." There would still be another burn. A mid-course correction to get Apollo 13 into the narrow corridoor through the atmosphere for a safe return to Earth. "We're at burn attitude Flight." "Acknowledge." "Ignition. Thrust looks good. Good shutdown." "Hang in there. Won't be long." "There were moments when I didn't know how much consumables we had. Whether we could make it back or not, but ahh, ahh, in a situation like that, there is only one thing you can do. You just keep going and ahh, you just keep thinking that way and working some more and ahh, so that's exactly what we did." On April 17th, they prepared for re-entry. After a small course correction burn, they jettisoned the damaged Service Module. "And that's sep." "Copy that." "And there's one whole side of that spacecraft missin'." "Is that right?" "A whole panel has blown out. Almost from the ahh, base to the ahh, engine." "Its really a mess." "Man, that's unbelievable." Next, they got back into Odyssey, to jettison Acquarius prior to entry into the atmosphere. "LM sep." "OK, copy that. Farewell Acquarius and we thankyou." "OK, LOS in a minute and a half. Ahh, entry attitude we'd like omni charlie and welcome home." "Thankyou." (Evening Standard. APOLLO 13: ON TARGET, APOLLO 13: THE EDGY HOURS) "Odyssey, Houston. Standing by, over." "OK Joe, we're..." [applause] "Odyssey, Houston. We show you on the mains. It really looks great." [greatly distorted "We show you on zero. Looking great."] "Apollo 13, Apollo 13. This is recovery, over." "Recovery, we're going through 5000." "Ahh, wonderful 13. This is recovery and your chutes look good." "Apollo 13. This is recovery. We observed your RCS burn, over." "Recovery, Apollo 13 is descending." "Houston. Roger that." "Apollo 13. This is recovery, over." "Over one splashdown at this time. The parachutes are [static] the astronauts are in the water [static]." "R zero can read magnetic freedom one half miles. You won't give up [static]." "You are zero, roger [static]." (...THEY'VE MADE IT! Gallant astronauts make perfect splashdown+++) "This is 401. The Command Module is stable one at this time. Riding comfortably [static]." "The vertical axis' are approximately 15 degrees [static]." "401, you are cleared to position for training in the ellocution." "White water. Roger [static]." "OK, capacity 19270 [static]." [whistling and applause] "I recall, Captain, when I spoke to you on the phone, you said that you regretted that you were unable to complete your mission. I hereby declare that this was a successfull mission. From the start, the exploration of space has been hazardous adventure." (HONOLULU, APRIL 18, 1970) "The voyage of Apollo 13 dramatised its risks. The men of Apollo 13, by their poise and skill, under the most intense kind of pressure, epitomise the character that accepts danger and surmounts it. Their's is the spirit that built America. Your mission served your country. It serves to remind us all our proud heritage of a nation. To remind us that in this age of technicians and scientific marvels, that the individual still counts. That in a crisis, the character of a man or men, will make the difference." (FIFTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PRAYER SERVICE FOR ASTRONAUTS AT 12:10 TO-DAY, DR. BRYANT M. KIRKLAND) "GNC?" "Go." "Circuits?" "Go." "Procedures?" "Go." AFD?" "Go." "Network?" "Go." "Computer suite?" "Go." "Rog. Network, give me an ever. RTC, you on AFD conference?" "RTC's on AFD conference." "OK all flight controllers, let's play it cool." (Writer/Producer, Don Wiseman. Editor, Richard L. Atwell. Production Manager, William W. Robbins. Production Coordinator, NASA, John D. Williams, Jr. Produced by A-V Corporation, Houston, Texas for NASA) (special thanks to: ABC, CBS, NBC, WGN-TV Chicago, WTTG Washington, D.C., U.S. Army Photo Teams, U.S. Air Force Photo Teams, Charles E. Gallagher, New York) (NASA seal, H.Q. 200)