On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise were determined to reach the moon as their craft took off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
Two days later, they were simply determined to make it back to Earth alive.
The terrifying events of the doomed mission and the ensuing operation to bring the trio home is the subject of the new documentary Apollo 13: Survival, debuting Thursday on Netflix. According to production company Insight Film, the movie examines the true “knife-edge, life-or-death drama” that unfolded with the help of archived recordings and testimony from people close to the mission.
The survival story of the Apollo 13 mission is now widely known due to the 1995 Oscar-winning movie of the same name. But surprisingly, it took a long time for Lovell, his flight partners, and the ground crew involved to have their tale fairly told onscreen.
The rescue gripped the world in real time
Friends and family of astronaut Jim Lovell, including his wife, Marilyn, watch news coverage of the Apollo 13 mission.
Two days after the launch of Apollo 13, an oxygen tank exploded, depleting the astronauts’ Command Module, named Odyssey, of power and oxygen.
“Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem,” Lovell grimly remarked, kicking off a dramatic rescue more than 200,000 miles from Earth that—thanks to blanket news coverage through print, radio, and, most importantly, television—captivated observers throughout the world.
Millions of Americans tuned into newscasts for updates, as Lovell, Swigert, and Haise battled perilous conditions such as freezing temperatures and rising carbon dioxide levels. On April 15, Pope Paul VI even led a prayer for the trio’s safety.
Flight Director Eugene Kranz and the crew at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston provided valuable assistance, calculations, and even helped the astronauts construct a makeshift CO2 filter using duct tape, cardboard, and a sock. With that aid, the astronauts finally splashed down on April 17 in the South Pacific Ocean. The New York Times reported that as many as 40 million people watched their recovery roughly 600 miles from American Samoa.
People involved in the operation were feted with congratulations. President Richard Nixon appeared at the MSC (now known as the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center) to present the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kranz and the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team. Nixon then did the same for the three astronauts at the Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, deeming the mission “successful” despite the aborted moon landing. “We are glad to be here, and we are glad to be a part of America,” Lovell said, according to NASA.
The dramatic story of Apollo 13 was told on film four years later—and not without controversy.
The first Apollo 13 movie was almost entirely fictional
Universal Studios became the first to adapt the Apollo 13 rescue for the screen, but the effort resembled a daytime soap opera more than a riveting survival saga. On March 2, 1974, ABC aired that movie Houston, We’ve Got a Problem. That the title was a misquote of Lovell became an early sign of the creative liberties the film would take in adapting the story.
Starring Robert Culp and Sandra Dee, the movie—made with NASA assistance—took the unusual approach of focusing on the workers inside Mission Control, not the Apollo 13 astronauts.
While NASA permitted filming inside its Johnson Space Center facilities and allowed real personnel to appear as extras, the agency stayed out of the project’s creative development. “We did not and do not feel we should be arbiters of what’s artistic or in ‘good taste,’ or not,” NASA Public Affairs representative John P. Donnelly wrote in a memo, adding he was hopeful the movie might “humanize” the space program.
It certainly did little to humanize the three astronauts, none of them are listed as characters, and there are no scenes in outer space. Meanwhile, during the course of the movie, members of the team in Houston grapple with personal issues that played no role in the real rescue—including a heart ailment affecting Culp’s character and a custody dispute involving another.
Lovell said the movie was “a disservice”
Astronaut Jim Lovell, seen here during a 1970 training session, decried the first movie made about the Apollo 13 rescue..
The studio explained the changes by saying the network would never have accepted a documentary-style project. It also emphasized the added disclaimers that to point out the movie’s fictitious elements. “What we did was take the basic facts and add additional drama on top,” Universal executive producer Herman Saunders said in February 1974. “How would you keep people in suspense, otherwise, when they all know the outcome 0f the story already?”
Houston, We’ve Got a Problem is largely forgotten by everyone except Lovell, who read the script and found it to be in poor taste and “a disservice to the flight crew and ground personnel” involved in the entire mission. “If one is to believe this story, it was obviously more traumatic to be in Mission Control than to be on board the crippled spacecraft,” Lovell said. “The Apollo 13 story in itself is an exciting adventure tale without the embellishments found in an afternoon serial program. If NASA wanted exposure of this nature, this story should have been based on a fictitious space flight.”
The movie was the only noteworthy adaptation of the mission that Swigert witnessed. He died at age 51 of complications from bone cancer in late December 1982. Meanwhile, Lovell became determined to tell the real story of Apollo 13 and played a critical role in doing so 20 years later.
Lovell had direct involvement in 1995’s Apollo 13
In 1994, Lovell collaborated with journalist Jeffrey Kluger on the autobiographical book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. This novel would serve as the inspiration for director Ron Howard’s eponymous 1995 blockbuster Apollo 13 about the doomed mission.
From the get-go, Lovell consulted on the movie to make it as realistic as possible. He even requested that actor Kevin Costner, who bore a striking physical resemblance, play him onscreen. The role eventually went to Tom Hanks, with Bill Paxton playing Haise, Kevin Bacon portraying Swigert, and Ed Harris in the critical part of Kranz.
Lovell personally helped Hanks prepare for the movie, welcoming the Forrest Gump star to his home in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, and flying him in his personal airplane. Hanks also spent more than four hours in NASA's “Vomit Comet,” the airplane used to train astronauts for rocket flight by alternating between negative gravity and 2Gs of force.
Unlike the maligned Houston movie, much more attention was devoted to the astronauts and the realism of their spacecraft. Haise consulted with the sound effects team on alarm and equipment noises, while Space Works Inc. created replicas of the Apollo 13 command and lunar modules “down to every last rivet and piece of velcro.” The attention to detail proved worthwhile, with Apollo 13 earning nine Academy Award nominations, with wins in two categories.
Despite its further alteration of Lovell’s famous quote—changed to the now iconic “Houston, we have a problem”—the movie ultimately earned the astronaut’s approval. “Ron Howard really followed it down the line,” Lovell said, adding another director might have “put this thing on Mars with David Bowie or something like that.”
Lovell approves of the new documentary
Jim Lovell speaks at a screening of Apollo 13 in March 2015.
Since the premiere of the Apollo 13 movie, the real mission has continued to be the subject of much interest and analysis.
Haise, now 90, published his own memoir, Never Panic Early: An Apollo 13 Astronaut’s Journey, in 2022 that details his experience and career. Apollo in Real Time, a website launched in 2020, allows viewers to see photographs and listen to Apollo 13 audio transmissions as they happened in 1970.
As for the new Netflix documentary, Lovell, now 96, has already given his full stamp of approval. “More than 50 years after the mission, the film put me right back in the captain’s seat,” he said, according to the Independent. “Those were the days! Seeing the historic footage and hearing the perspectives of family and friends on the ground truly stirred my emotions. I am grateful the world now has this excellent documentary showing the raw emotions and triumph we felt back then.”
All of these projects help ensure the true legacy of Apollo 13 endures for years to come.
Watch Apollo 13: Survival on Netflix
Director Peter Middleton reached out to Lovell’s family before making the new documentary in an effort to “weave in the experience of our family in a way that would give people a whole new perspective,” according to Jim’s son, Jeff Lovell.
Jeff, 58, told The Telegraph in August 2024 that he gave Middleton access to hours of home videos and personal photographs. “I hope that makes it a much more emotional, human story,” he said.
Experience the harrowing tale of Lovell and the entire Apollo 13 crew when Apollo 13: Survival streams on Netflix starting Thursday.
Tyler Piccotti
News and Culture Editor, Biography.com
Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.
