| Houston, We've Got a Problem | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Lawrence Doheny |
| Produced by | Herman S. Saunders |
| Starring | Ed Nelson Sandra Dee |
| Release date(s) | 1974 |
Houston, We've Got a Problem is a 1974 television film about the Apollo 13 spaceflight, directed by Lawrence Doheny and starring Ed Nelson in the role of NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz.
The film did not focus on the spaceflight itself, mostly a news-announcer type voice-over of archival news footage. Instead, it dramatised fictional personal crises among flight controllers at Mission Control in Houston.
On seeing the film, Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell wrote a letter to TV Guide magazine in which he commented that given all the medical and relationship crises depicted, it was safer aboard the stricken spaceship than it was at Mission Control.
The title of the film is a mistake, being a widely misquoted announcement made by Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert following the explosion of an oxygen tank which tore off the side of the spacecraft service module. Swigert actually said, "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here."[1]