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Houston, We Have A Problem | National Geographic


00:00:00[Music]

00:00:11in Houston flight director Krantz is

00:00:14trying to make sense of the barrage of

00:00:16information completely surrounded with

00:00:20reports coming in that I don’t fully

00:00:22understand but frankly problems are our

00:00:25business and I thought we’re going to

00:00:28solve this problem and get back on track

00:00:30no big deal

00:00:32where you don’t believe that o2 tank one

00:00:34pressure day no no I honed in on knee

00:00:40comes I’ll ever got principally because

00:00:43he has the responsibility for those

00:00:45things you need to stay alive in space

00:00:47power oxygen pressure heat water let’s

00:00:50get our education to wind up do you guys

00:00:52okay now do we have instrumentation I’m

00:00:57realizing that I am the focal point of

00:01:00all this nothing to brag about can we

00:01:02tell them anything do we have a real

00:01:04problem or is it instruments while

00:01:07Houston struggles to make sense of the

00:01:09data stream Lovell checks the ships tank

00:01:12gauges he’s in for a shock they wanted a

00:01:17gauge on one of our oxygen tanks red

00:01:20zero and I could actually see the deal

00:01:22go down on the second floor engage very

00:01:25slowly since oxygen is used both for

00:01:28breathing and as a source of power it’s

00:01:31vital they find the cause of the

00:01:32hemorrhage I knew we had an attack

00:01:35spacecraft obviously I was still

00:01:37breathing there was no gaping hole that

00:01:40was letting air out with no sign of a

00:01:44meteor impact they must search elsewhere

00:01:48Lovell takes a look outside his window

00:01:52and I can’t tell you the day why I did

00:01:54it but I saw escaping at a high rate of

00:01:57speed from the rear end of my spacecraft

00:01:59a gaseous substance did not take much

00:02:10intelligence on my part to realize that

00:02:13the gas escaping and the needle on my

00:02:15second and last tank were one of the

00:02:16same and very shortly we’d be completely

00:02:20out of oxygen

00:02:27the cold chill of realization came in

00:02:30that we had a real problem and I don’t

00:02:34know what to do about it

00:02:36Krantz realizes that 56 hours into their

00:02:40mission Apollo 13 is poised on the brink

00:02:43of catastrophe then I move into survival

00:02:47mode

00:02:48okay I’ll flight controller settle down

00:02:51quit your guessing let’s start working

00:02:53this problem hey you got two good AC

00:02:55buses what did all that tell you no but

00:03:00Lee Bhagat still has no clue what’s

00:03:02happening or how to fix it well just

00:03:05give me about two more minutes

00:03:07okay thank you I had to find out where

00:03:10the leak was and try to isolate it and

00:03:12try to save the right the remaining part

00:03:14of the oxygen otherwise the crews gonna

00:03:15be dead Lee Bhagat realizes his only

00:03:18hope of isolating the leak is to close

00:03:21valves that feed oxygen into two of the

00:03:23fuel cells but closing these valves is

00:03:26irreversible

00:03:28those two fuel cells will not work again

00:03:31[Music]

00:03:34his final option it is my final option

00:03:37it’s a gamble but it’s their only chance

00:03:42[Music]

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