50 years to the day since "Houston we've had a problem here"

Newspaper headlines of April 1970

I was looking at the Moon through my large telescope from my garden and marvelling at the craters in view near the southern polar region. An awesome sight seeing the slopes of the crater walls and the shadows cast making you realise how deep some of the craters really are. Then my mind wandered a little and I thought of the crater Fra Mauro (named after an Italian geographer) where the Apollo 13 mission was due to land. Fifty years ago today those chilling words “Houston, we’ve had a problem here” were spoken by astronaut Jack Swigert (not quite the same as in the film Apollo 13).

I was 17 at the time and had been following everything to do with space since I was 5 years old and we learnt of Sputnik 1 being launched. I was hooked (for life)! The thing I most remember about the time of the Apollo 13 problem was the way the whole world came together to pray for the safe return of the 3 astronauts - Commander Jim Lovell, Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise. And of course God answered those prayers. In the days when televisions were sold in smaller shops, people all around the world crowded around the shop fronts to watch the re-entry of the capsule and applauded as the 3 shutes opened and we all saw the safe splashdown in the Pacific.

Today - exactly 50 years to the day since that explosion gripped the world - we see the world coming together again, as 50 years ago, to pray that God will help us overcome our problem. We are not on our own. God is with us. Already we see our prayers answered that Boris has started his road to recovery. God is good.

Scroll down the home page to see full information about the Apollo missions and in particular Apollo 13