On This Day…

Houston, we’ve had a problem here

April 13, 1970

An Apollo 13 oxygen tank explodes, endangering the crew and causing the planned Moon landing to be aborted. One of the problems that had to be overcome was the need to adapt the Command Module’s square carbon dioxide scrubber cartridges to fit the Lunar Module, which took a round cartridge. This was done by drawing air through them with a suit return hose (shown in photo).
Note: The actual phrase was “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here”, spoken by Jack Swigert. After being asked to repeat the transmission Jim Lovell responded with “Uh, Houston, we’ve had a problem”. In the 1995 movie Apollo 13, the line was shortened to the more dramatic, “Houston, we have a problem”