Apollo 13 Monologues

NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.

Houston, we have a problem.

Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you.

We just put Sir Isaac Newton in the driver's seat.

Our mission was called "a successful failure," in that we returned safely but never made it to the moon. In the following months, it was determined that a damaged coil built inside the oxygen tank sparked during our cryo stir and caused the explosion that crippled the Odyssey. It was a minor defect that occured two years before I was even named the flight's commander. Fred Haise was going back to the moon on Apollo 18, but his mission was cancelled because of budget cuts; he never flew in space again. Nor did Jack Swigert, who left the astronaut corps and was elected to Congress from the state of Colorado. But he died of cancer before he was able to take office. Ken Mattingly orbited the moon as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 16, and flew the Space Shuttle, having never gotten the measles. Gene Kranz retired as Director of Flight Operations just not long ago. And many other members of Mission Control have gone on to other things, but some are still there. As for me, the seven extraordinary days of Apollo 13 were my last in space. I watched other men walk on the moon, and return safely, all from the confines of Mission Control and our house in Houston. I sometimes catch myself looking up at the moon, remembering the changes of fortune in our long voyage, thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home. I look up at the moon, and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be?

Uh well, I'll tell ya, I remember this one time - I'm in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there's no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone... because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was - it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I'm lookin' down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can't even tell now what my altitude is. I know I'm running out of fuel, so I'm thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there's this uh, there's this green trail. It's like a long carpet that's just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was - it was - it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn't shorted out, there's no way I'd ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh, never know... what... what events are to transpire to get you home.

From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. And it's not a miracle, we just decided to go.

Houston, we're getting our first look at the service module now. One whole side of the spacecraft is missing. Right by the high gain antennae, a whole panel is blown out, right up... right up to our heat shield.

Hello, Houston. This is Odyssey. It's good to see you again.

Well... if I had a dollar for every time they've killed me in this thing, I wouldn't have to work for you, Deke... Well, we have two days, we'll be ready. Let's do it again.

All right, we're not doing this, gentlemen. We are *not* going to do this. We're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, 'cause we're just going to end up back here with the same problems! Try to figure out how to stay alive!

Houston, we are venting something out into space. I can see it outside window one right now. It's definitely a... a gas of some sort.

It's got to be the oxygen.

All right, we're not doing this, gentlemen. We are *not* doing this. We're not going to go bouncing off the walls for ten minutes, 'cause we're just going to end up back here with the same problems! Try to figure out how to stay alive!

Uh, Ken Mattingly has been doing some… scientific experiments regarding that very phenomenon, haven't you?

Just a little while longer Freddo. Just a little while longer, we're gonna hit that water in the South Pacific. Open up that hatch. It's 80 degrees out there.

Well, I'll tell you something about that fire, a lot of things went wrong. The door, called the hatch? They couldn't get it open when they needed to get out. That was one thing. Well, a lot of things went wrong.

Okay, uh, good evening, America, and welcome aboard Apollo 13. I'm Jim Lovell, and we're broadcasting to you tonight from an altitude of almost 200,000 miles away from the… the face of the Earth, and we have a pretty good show in store for you tonight. We are going to show you just what, uh, life is like for the three of us in the vast expanse of outer space.

Okay, one of the first things we'd like to do is provide you with the appropriate background music. So, uh, hit it there, Freddo.

That, uh, was supposed to be the theme to "2001", in honor of our command module Odyssey, but there seems to have been a last-minute change in the program.

Houston, uh, we… we sure could use the re-entry procedure up here. When can we expect that?

Uh, Houston, we… we… we just can't just throw this together at the last minute. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna get the procedure up to us, whatever it is, and we're gonna go over it step by step so that there's no foul-ups. I don't have to tell you we're all a little tired up here. The world's getting awfully big in the window.

Houston, we're at stable one. The ship is secure. This is Apollo 13 signing off.

Uh, we copy, uh, Houston. Be advised, it's gonna take Freddo and I a while to power up the computer for the, uh, alignment platform if we have to fire the engine.

This is it; a few bumps and we're haulin' the mail.