Apollo 13 Page #10

in the window, flying manually,

the co-ax cross hairs

right on its terminator,

all I have to know is: How long

do we need to burn the engine?

- The shorter, the better.

- Roger that, Jim.

Can they fly it manually

and still shut it down...

on time without the computer?

I guess that's the best we can do.

We're out of time.

In order to enter

the atmosphere safely,

the crew must aim for a corridor

just two and a half degrees wide.

If they're too steep, they'll incinerate

in the steadily thickening air.

If they're too shallow,

they'll ricochet...

off the atmosphere like

a rock skipping off a pond.

The reentry corridor is,

in fact, so narrow...

that if this basketball

were the Earth...

and this softball

were the moon,

and the two were placed

the crew would have to hit a target

no thicker than this piece of paper.

Okay, people, on your toes.

We're doing this one blind.

Gene, I want you to understand

we've never tried this before:

Burn, cold soak, burn,

cold soak, burn, manual control.

Look, it will ignite, will it not?

I just want you to know the engine's

never been tried like this.

That's all I'm trying to tell you.

I know what you're trying to do.

I guarantee you, I won't hold you

personally responsible.

If it lights, it lights.

Let Lovell do the rest.

Okay.

They're gonna burn the engines

and steer it manually,

attempting to keep

the Earth in the window.

Okay, this is gonna take

all three of us.

Freddo...

you handle the pitch.

Put on the translation

controllers, all backwards.

So if the Earth starts drifting down,

you need to thrust aft,

not forward.

I'll do the same on mine

with everything else.

We're going to burn at ten percent

thrust for 39 seconds.

- Jack, you time us.

- Got it.

Give us a count of

the last ten seconds up to 39.

Let's not miss this.

You up to this, Freddo?

I'm with you.

Standing by

for corridor control burn.

Okay, Jim,

you can fire when ready.

You are go

for the manual burn.

Okay, X plus button

at ten seconds. Mark.

- Come on, baby. One more burn.

- Nine, eight,

seven, six, five,

- four, three,

- Ullage is go.

Two, one, ignition!

- She's burnin'!

- Oh, yeah.

- Master arm off.

- Okay, here we go.

- Helium regulator on.

- R.C.S. Is go, 10% thrust.

- Bring her around, Freddo.

- I'm tryin', but it's draggin'.

- Ten seconds.

- Drop it down, Freddo.

- We're driftin'!

- No, hold what you got.

- I'll roll it. Back off.

- I can't get it stable.

She's dancin' all over the place!

- Come to the right a little bit.

- Fifteen seconds.

She's driftin'.

I'm losin' attitude.

Hold it right there.

That's it. No, Freddo, back!

- Sh*t! I'm losin' it!

- Bring the Earth up.

Forward, Fred.

Come on. Forward.

Sh*t, I lost it!

Where is it? Where is it?

Bring it down, Freddo.

Just nose it down.

- Okay, uh, okay, I got it!

- Thirty seconds.

Little farther.

Ease your touch!

Damn it! Damn it, that's mine.

That's me. Around.

- A little more. Come on, baby.

- Come on, that's it. Hold it. Damn it!

- Back! That's it! Hold it! Steady.

...seven, eight, nine!

Shutdown!

Houston, we have shutdown.

That's close enough, Jim. Good work.

I knew it! I knew it!

How about that LEM, huh?

How about it?

- Guess you can keep your job.

- You betcha.

Thirteen, stand by. We're evaluating

our power usage on that burn.

Well, let's hope we don't

have to do that again.

Gentlemen, you've given our guys

enough to survive 'til reentry.

Well done.

Now we gotta get 'em in, so tell me

about the power-up procedures.

Here's the order

of what I want to do.

I want to power up Guidance,

E.C.S., Communications,

warm up the pyros for the parachutes

and the command module thrusters.

The thrusters are gonna

put you over budget on amps.

They've been sitting at 200 below for

four days, John. They gotta be heated.

Fine. Then trade off

the parachutes, something.

Well, if the chutes

don't open, what's the point?

You're telling me what you need.

I'm telling you what we have

to work with at this point.

I'm not making this stuff up.

They're going to need

all these systems, John.

We do not have the power, Ken.

We just don't have it.

Okay, I'm gonna go back

and reorganize the sequencing again...

and find more power.

Let's start from scratch.

Clear the board.

I don't know where the hell

we're gonna find it.

Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell

has more time in space,

almost 24 days already,

than any other man,

and I asked him recently

if he ever was scared.

I've had an engine flame out

a few times in an aircraft...

and was curious as to whether it

was going to light up again,

but, uh, they seem to work out.

Is there an instance

in an airplane emergency...

when you can recall fear?

Uh, well, I remember this one time,

I'm in a Banshee at night in

combat conditions, so there's no

running lights on the carrier.

It was the Shangri-la,

and we were in the Sea of Japan.

My radar had jammed,

and my homing signal was gone...

because somebody in Japan

was actually using the same frequency,

and so it was leading me away

from where I was supposed to be.

I'm looking down at a big, black ocean,

so I flip on my map light.

Then, suddenly, zap, everything

shorts out right there in my cockpit.

All my instruments are gone.

My lights are gone and I can't

even tell what my altitude is.

I know I'm running out of fuel, so I'm

thinking about ditching into the ocean.

I look down there

and then, in the darkness,

there's this, uh,

there's this green trail.

It's like a long carpet that's just laid

out right beneath me. It was the algae.

It was that phosphorescent stuff...

that gets churned up

in the wake of a big ship.

It was, it was, it was

just leading me home.

If my cockpit lights

hadn't shorted out,

there's no way I'd have ever

been able to see that.

So, uh, you, uh,

you never know...

what, what events are going

to transpire to get you home.

Spacecraft commander Jim Lovell,

no stranger to emergencies.

- How's it going, Fred?

- I'm okay.

What the hell was that?

Let's hope it was

just the burst disk.

- Can you confirm a burst helium disk?

- We confirm that.

Houston, is that going to

affect our, uh, entry angle at all?

Uh, negative. Your entry angle

is holding at 6.24, Aquarius.

Houston, uh...

we, we sure could use...

the reentry procedure up here.

When can we expect that?

Uh, that's coming

real soon, Aquarius.

Uh, Houston, we, we...

We just can't throw this

together at the last minute.

So, here's what you're gonna do.

You're gonna get the procedure

up to us, whatever it is,

and we're gonna go over it

step by step, so there's no foul-ups.

I don't have to tell you

we're all a little tired up here.

The world's getting awfully big

in the window.

- Jim, this is Deke.

- It's Deke.

They don't know how to do it.

- Maybe Jack's right.

- Hello there, Deke. What's the story?

We're gonna get that

power-up procedure to you.

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