''Houston, We've Got a Problem'' is a 1974 American

made-for-television A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a film with a running time similar to a feature film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a Terrestr ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

about the

Apollo 13 Apollo 13 (April 1117, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo space program and would have been the third Moon landing. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing was abort ...

spaceflight, directed by Lawrence Doheny and starring

Ed Nelson Edwin Stafford Nelson (December 21, 1928 – August 9, 2014) was an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Michael Rossi in the television series ''Peyton Place (TV series), Peyton Place''. Nelson appeared in episodes of many TV p ...

in the role of NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz.

Technical and historical accuracy

The title of the film is a misquotation of the ominous announcement made by Commander

Jim Lovell James Arthur Lovell Jr. ( ; born March 25, 1928) is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became, with Frank Borman and William Anders, one of the fi ...

following the explosion of an oxygen tank which tore off the side of the spacecraft's

service module A service module (also known as an equipment module or instrument compartment) is a component of a crewed space capsule containing a variety of support systems used for spacecraft operations. Usually located in the uninhabited area of the spacec ...

. Lovell actually said, "Houston, we've had a problem". The film does not focus on the spaceflight itself, but rather on the crises in Mission Control.

wrote a letter to ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

'' about the film, saying that the crises in Mission Control were dramatized. Lovell called the film "fictitious and in poor taste." Executive producer Herman Saunders said he could have never sold the television station on a documentary and that warnings were added to the film to indicate it was fictitious.

References

External links

* 1974 films 1974 television films Films about the Apollo program American television films American films based on actual events Films produced by Harve Bennett Films set in 1970 Films set in Houston Films shot in Houston Apollo 13 {{US-tv-drama-film-stub