James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise (Image: NASA)

Forty years after NASA’s ill-fated fifth moon mission, we tune in to the astronauts’ conversations thanks to newly released transcripts

DAY 1

Mission control: It’s time for Fred to start looking for the Earth, should be coming by in about a couple of minutes.

Jim Lovell: He’s got his head out there right now.


Fred Haise: Yes. You’ve got that pretty well pegged, man. There it be.

MC: Doesn’t that give you confidence?

FH: Yes. I guess so… I guess the world really does turn. I can see some land masses now. It must be Australia down near the bottom and I guess we haven’t really figured out what’s over the – to the left. It must be some part of Asia. China, probably.

MC: Hey, maybe the fact that you verified that the Earth really turns, we can call this Haise’s theory, huh?

DAY 2

JL: Hello there, Houston… We’d like to hear what the news is.

MC: There’s not a whole lot to it…They had earthquakes in Manila… The Beatles have announced they will no longer perform as a group. The quartet is reported to have made in excess of a half billion dollars. However, rumors that they will use this money to start their own space program are false.

JL: Maybe we could borrow some… We’re having lunch right now, and I just made myself a hot dog sandwich with catsup.

MC: As I recall the flight plan, you’re supposed to put mustard on the hot dogs and not catsup, but I guess we’ll overlook that.

Jack Swigert: We blew it.

DAY 3

JL (during filming): Now Fred’s engaged in his favorite pastime…

MC: He’s not in the food locker, is he?

JL: That’s his second favorite pastime. He’s rigging his hammock for sleep on the lunar surface…

FH: It’s kind of difficult here… getting into a hammock in zero g. I’m not sure if I keep floating away from it or it keeps moving away from me…

MC: We’re seeing a good picture… looks like the characters shaved before the show this time.

JL: Well, Fred said he had to keep up his TV image.

FH: Yes. That may be my first and last time though.

JL: It took Fred 1 hour to shave.

12 MINUTES LATER

JL: Houston, we’ve had a problem…

FH: We had a pretty large bang…

JL: It looks to me, looking out the hatch, that we are venting something. We are venting something out into the – into space.

FH (4 hours later): I’m looking out the right window and it’s pretty dark out that window but there are about a thousand or so false stars out here from – left over from some of the debris. It’s hard to discern what’s real and not real.

JL (7 hours later): Well, I’m afraid this is going to be the last lunar mission for a long time.

DAY 6 (return to Earth)

JL: I’m looking out the window now… and that Earth is whistling in like a high-speed freight train.

(Seven hours later, the spacecraft drifts down to Earth, carried by parachutes)

Profile James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were astronauts on NASA’s Apollo 13 mission in April 1970. Though their craft was severely damaged by an explosion, the crew managed to return safely to Earth. These extracts are from the newly released searchable version of NASA’s Apollo 13 transcripts at spacelog.org