Houston, we have a problem!

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"Houston, we have a problem!" Is a well-known, but not quite correctly reproduced quote that on 13. April 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13 to the NASA - mission control center in the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston ( Texas ) was judged. It became a household word .

The quote

About two days after the launch exploded in the American space program - Mission suddenly Apollo 13, a tank containing liquid oxygen (see here ). The crew then radioed, according to NASA protocol, the following words with the capsule communicator Jack R. Lousma at the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center on Earth:

[02: 07: 55: 19]: Fred Haise : Okay, Houston ... (interrupted by Lovell)
[02: 07: 55: 20]: Jack Swigert : I believe we've had a problem here.
[02:07:55:28]: Jack R. Lousma: This is Houston. Say again, please.
[02: 07: 55: 35]: Jim Lovell : Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a main B bus undervolt.

In German:

[02: 07: 55: 19]: Fred Haise: Okay, Houston ... (interrupted by Lovell)
[02: 07: 55: 20]: Jack Swigert: I think we had a problem here.
[02: 07: 55: 28]: Jack R. Lousma: This is Houston. Repeat that please.
[02: 07: 55: 35]: Jim Lovell: Houston, we had a problem. There was a main bus - undervoltage .

In the audio recording and after the descriptions by James “Jim” Lovell, the correct, initial quote from capsuleer John “Jack” Swigert was “ Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here ” (German: “ Okay, Houston, we had here a problem ”).

The quote became known in the slightly modified (and so used in the film Apollo 13 ) formulation “ Houston, we have a problem. "(German:" Houston, we have a problem. ").

Further course

The tank's pipe system was also damaged by the explosion , so the three alkaline fuel cells could only work for a few hours. The only option was to abort the mission and get Apollo 13 back to Earth as soon as possible. The lunar module Aquarius was improvised as a “lifeboat” . On the return flight, the course changed slightly due to a short burning phase of the lander in the lunar module, so that the trajectory led back to earth after the lunar orbit . The crew was in the lunar module for a total of more than three days. Shortly before the re-entry phase, the silver oxide-zinc battery in the command module , which was partially discharged during the accident, had to be recharged from the lunar module using an improvised cable. Eventually, the astronauts successfully arrived on Earth.

The damaged service module of the Apollo 13 after separation

Film adaptation of the Apollo mission

In the Apollo 13 movie , the actual quote was shortened to the well-known "Houston, we have a problem" because some of the words actually spoken were found unnecessary. Screenwriter William Broyles Jr. , who made the change, stated that the actual tense tense used was "not that dramatic." Broyles and Naomi S. Baron , a linguist from American University , said that spoken dialogue wouldn't work well in a suspenseful movie. Probably because of this tricky application, of all things, the shortened quote from the film became so well known: It occupies place 50 of the “ 100 greatest film quotes ” of the AFI .

Others

A 2016 film about an alleged American-funded Yugoslav space program is titled Houston, We Have a Problem!

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hellmuth Vensky: Apollo 13 moon mission: "Houston, we have a problem". In: Zeit Online . April 16, 2010, accessed July 24, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Rainer W. During: Words with effect: "Houston, we have a problem". In: tagesspiegel.de . July 10, 2015, accessed July 24, 2020 .
  3. ↑ SPIEGEL APOLLO 13: The longest night - DER SPIEGEL 17/1970 .
  4. ↑ In brackets the time stamp since start in the format [dd: hh: mm: ss]
  5. ↑ Apollo 13 - Technical Air to Ground Voice Transcription: 02 07 55 35. Retrieved April 11, 2020 .
  6. ↑ n-tv NEWS: Apollo 13 bangs 87 hours .
  7. ↑ Ulli Kulke: Apollo 13: The horror of not even returning as a corpse . October 4, 2008.
  8. ↑ Summary - Apollo 13 - Journal of the Lunar Exploration .
  9. ↑ Apollo 13: Destination Fra Mauro - Aborted 3rd moon landing .
  10. ↑ Sabine Rutar: Conspiracies and the fabrication of truth: "Houston, we have a problem!" In: erinnerung.hypotheses.org. Junge DGO , February 23, 2017, accessed July 24, 2020 .