It was April of 1970 when the crew of Apollo 13 headed for the moon. I was still as excited about space travel as I had been in Mrs. Colby’s science class when her enthusiasm for human travel in the universe infected me with a thrilling sense of the possibilities for the future of mankind. All along with most of the I world have watched the first American going into space, the first American going into an orbit, the first American men on the moon. I was not any less enthusiastic about the journey of the crew of Apollo 13, but I was in the last months of pregnancy with my first child and so her impending birth distracted me from anything that was happening beyond my tiny little world of prepping to be a mom. 

The crew of James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise had been training for months for a walk on the moon when Swigert developed measles and had to be quarantined. Those were the days when none of us who were adults had enjoyed the wonder of a measles vaccine. Many of us contracted measles when we were children but Swigert had the terrible fate of getting sick just when he was scheduled to take off for a journey to the moon. Rather than delaying the trip the decision was made to replace Swigert at the last minute with Ken Mattingly and proceed as planned. 

There were some whose superstitious natures worried about calling the mission Apollo 13. After all we don’t have thirteenth floors in buildings and sometimes skip we that number in the ordering of seats on planes. Having a crew member become ill at the last minute seemed to portend trouble, but the crew and those who would monitor them in Mission Control scoffed at any idea that the fates were somehow doomed. On April 11, 1970 the crew hurdled toward the moon after a seemingly perfect launch. 

There were far fewer journalists covering the journey than there had been with the Apollo 11 mission when the first humans walked on the moon. Somehow the very concept of space travel had become seemingly more ordinary. We expected everything to go according to plan and so most of us went about our daily routines only peripherally paying attention to the third group of men scheduled to walk on the surface of the cold and craggy orb that we see in the night sky. 

Of course now we know how drastically things changed two days into the mission when an oxygen tank ruptured in the service module disabling electricity and the life support system. Suddenly the goal was not to walk on the moon but to get the crew back to earth safely, a venture that nobody ever dreamed of happening. The whole world watched with rapt attention as the engineers had to devise solutions to one problem after another on the fly. 

Those of us who were watching the coverage in real time remember the dire warnings and the tension that hovered over the entire world. We’ve seen the movie directed by Ron Howard with Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise playing the astronauts. We saw each problem unfold in living color on a big screen and thankfully know that the crew eventually made it back to earth safely. We now realize that they were in far more trouble that we might have once thought but all ended well and we moved on and grew older even as we never forgot that intense moment in time. 

Now there is a new documentary streaming on Netflix called Apollo 13: Survival that recounts the terrifying journey with films from inside the spacecraft and Mission Control at the NASA space center in Houston, Texas. Narrated by the actual people involved in that incredible adventure, it is a glance back at a time when none of our technology was as advanced as it now is. Viewing the inside of the spacecraft with the grainy and sometimes blurry film only emphasizes how far we have progressed since 1970. It is truly a wonder that the engineers and the crew were able to keep cool heads and make it back to the home base of earth. 

I found this documentary to be one of the most emotional films that I have ever seen. Even knowing the outcome in advance I was breathless through most of it. I marveled at the courage and calm of the crew who knew that they had only one shot at making it to the only place in the universe where they might survive. The earth became a spiritual place for them and for me as I watched the engineers using every ounce of their intelligence and engineering skill to handle every difficulty that seemed destined to end badly. Their work was perhaps one of the most extraordinary feats of engineering in the history of the world. 

I won’t spoil the details of the documentary but I will recommend that everyone watch this amazing film. It will take you to a kind of meditation about life and who we are as people that will be as uplifting as being born again. It is a tribute to courage and ingenuity and to our very planet that will leave you in awe. I know that I was in tears by the end of the film and even days later I can’t stop thinking about it and wondering why we are wasting so much time these days bickering instead of solving life and death problems as they arise. Jame Lovell’s commentary at the conclusion will most assuredly leave you feeling a kinship with all of humanity and with the planet that is our only hope for survival. Watch Apollo 13: Survival and you will understand what I mean.