Apollo 13: In space, no-one can see you exaggerate

Apollo 13 (1995)
Director: Ron Howard
Entertainment grade: B
History grade: A–

Apollo 13 was a 1970 moon landing mission mounted by Nasa's Apollo Space Program, which ran from 1961 until 1972. It ran into trouble after an oxygen tank exploded, leaving crucial systems damaged.

Politics

America's space program, a voiceover tells us, was "inspired by the late President Kennedy." John F. Kennedy's predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. In 1961, though, hunky Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. The Cold War was burning hot at that point, and there was no way the United States was going to sit back and let the Russkies take the moon. So, in May 1961, Kennedy challenged NASA to put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s, and shoveled a few more billions of dollars their way to make it happen.

Technology

Sadly, Kennedy did not live to see Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. The film shows astronaut Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks) watching the great event, when Armstrong may or may not have fluffed his line (it should have been "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" – which Armstrong insisted was what he said). Lovell is in line for Apollo 14. "Anything is possible!" he explains excitedly. "Like a computer that can fit into a single room!" Aww.

Omens

Lovell is bumped up from Apollo 14 to 13, but his command module pilot, Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise), is diagnosed with impending measles and replaced at the last minute by Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon). They prepare for launch along with lunar module pilot Fred Haise (Bill Paxton). Meanwhile, Lovell's wife has a nightmare in which her husband is sucked out of the capsule into space, and freaks out when her wedding ring slips off her finger and down a plughole. Dramatically convenient though these premonitions may seem, the real Jim Lovell has confirmed that they both really happened.

Gravity

The zero-gravity scenes in the movie are extremely convincing, because they're real. Director Ron Howard persuaded NASA to let him film on its reduced-gravity aircraft, known as the Vomit Comet. Appropriately enough, up in space, Haise pukes. Don't puke in space. It floats off everywhere in horrible little chunks. Then we are treated to Lovell's urination ritual. "It's too bad we can't demonstrate this on TV," he says, bunging the stuff out of the disposal tube to make a golden shower in space. It's all fun, games, billions of taxpayer dollars and swirling bodily fluids until Swigert performs a routine stir of the oxygen tanks. There's a loud bang, and Lovell gets to utter the famous words: "Houston, we have a problem." Though, in real life, he said "Houston, we've had a problem." Oh well, close enough. Does anybody get their lines right in space?

Problems

"We just lost the moon," Lowell says sadly. Swigert has noticed it's worse: "If this doesn't work, we're not going to have enough power left to get home." This column is not Reel Rocket Science, but the film seems to do a convincing job of explaining the technical faults – and most of the audience will appreciate that losing power, oxygen and bits of one's spaceship is not good news. The real Ken Mattingly outlined a few differences between the film and real life in a NASA oral history. His main point was that the film makes it look like "we invented a lot of stuff". In reality it was less chaotic, for NASA had already simulated many of the faults which would occur on Apollo 13. In the film, his character is rewarded for nobly not going into space by nobly saving his stricken crewmembers from the control centre. In real life, the tasks Mattingly performs were down to a whole team, and they were operating more closely along the lines of existing procedures. Of course, to show all this accurately would have been much less dramatic.

Verdict

A well-researched adaptation of the Apollo 13 story makes for a pacy, compelling movie.