Houston, We Have A Problem

Ron Howard made a great movie about Apollo 13, and it was 45 years ago this week that the crew of the spacecraft found themselves in big trouble, when an oxygen tank explosion blew up a huge chunk of their craft and left NASA scrambling for a way to get the crew home safely.  It was astronaut Jim Lovell’s famous phrase “Houston, we have a problem” that became almost as famous as Neil Armstrong’s “One Small Step” speech. This brief article from David Shedden gives a nice review of how the media changed from routine coverage of what had become a less-than-riveting event – a mission to the moon – to full-bore, all-hands-on-deck coverage of a real drama.

Posted by Tim Morrissey