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The Naval officer that Tom Hanks shakes hands with at the end is the real Jim Lovell. The movie is based on his book about the disaster called Lost Moon. After this film Tom Hanks did a series for HBO called From The Earth To The Moon

The only part that’s inaccurate is them losing their cool. They remained calm and collected throughout. Other than that, this movie is extremely accurate and the only way you can get closer to what really happened is to have actually been there.

The three weeks in space was for Lovell only. When you add up the time in space for his two Gemini missions and Apollo 8, plus this one, Apollo 13. The other two, Haise and Swaggert, it was their first and only time in space. This mission was just under 6 days.

The one line that hit me hardest was when Mrs Lovell told her son that something had gone wrong and he asks, "Was it the door?" That actor's delivery, the directing, the callback to his earlier discussion with his dad about the Apollo 1 that tells you that what he's REALLY asking is "Is he dead?"🥺😨😭 That moment was SO well done!

I knew the story before I saw the film. I've seen it dozens of times now. I still burst into tears _every single time_ I hear "Hello Houston, this is Odyssey".

Mary, there is a *great* movie about the early history of the US space program called "The Right Stuff", and *nobody* has reacted to it. It had a brilliant cast, notably an early role for Ed Harris, playing astronaut John Glenn. I think the style of that film was a major influence on this one.

Hidden Figures is another great movie based on the early days of NASA. Not too many people have reacted to it either.

You will LOVE an Australian movie called “The Dish.” It’s about Apollo Eleven and a town called Parks.

The filming of this is incredible. The actors really were weightless.

If this was up your alley, the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon” is another one they did that’s really well done. The episode about Grumman building the LEM was one of the best. Ed Harris’ portrayal of Gene Kranz (the Flight Director) in this movie was truly excellent. He’s one of those thousands of heroes on the backend that made the program work.

My cousin worked at Grumman and built the lunar module. He was instrumental in bringing the astronauts home. He was not happy with the nonsense they portrayed about questioning the Grumman guy regarding if the rocket would fire. My cousin then worked on building the shuttle wings. He would send me mission patches,signed astronaut photos plus photos he took of the lunar modules and shuttle wings being built.

The funny thing is that, it's actually been more time since this movie was made than it was from when the Apollo 13 incident happened. It was about 25 years after it happened when the movie was released. And it's been about 27 years since the movie was released. It's crazy that we haven't gone back to the moon in that amount of time. Hopefully, in the next couple years we will be there permanently.

The woman who played Jim's mother "My Jimmy could fly a washing machine" (to paraphrase one of her lines) was Jean Speegle Howard- the real mother of director Ron Howard. Since embarking on his directorial career, Ron likes to put his family- almost all of whom are also actors- in his films as much as possible. Practically every Ron Howard film has a family cameo in it. Talented family!!

"It wouldn't have happened if Kevin Bacon didn't do that thing!" Laughed pretty hard at that. Unfortunately, what Kevin Bacons character was doing was stir the O2 tanks. They had to be stirred on a regular basis to avoid build up of frozen solids, otherwise other bad things would've happened. No matter what, those tanks would have had to been stirred, and the explosion would've happened no matter what.

"if they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it!" best line of the entire movie, i'm so glad you went full screen for that.

Lovell's little boy asking, "Was it the door?" makes my heart drop every time.

Always so exciting when the viewer is unfamiliar with the history.

I had the privilege of meeting Jim Lovell a couple of times at his restaurant he used to run in the north Chicago suburbs. He was always a pleasure to talk to and such an interesting and charismatic guy!

I was 8 years old when this took place. I was, and still am, an Apollo program fanboy. I remember being an angry kid when the broadcast I had been promised failed to happen. Then, after the accident, nothing could tear me away from the TV as I waited for each little bit of news. When the televisions stations signed off for the day, playing the national anthem, I knew it would be "forever" until they came back on the air in the morning. I was there watching the test pattern, waiting for programming to actually begin. When my parents forced me to go to school, I thought they were the worst people on earth. All I wanted was to follow the story. When they landed safely, I thought I was the happiest person on earth until I saw that the crew had not been quarantined the way Apollos 11 and 12 had been. (they had been kept in what looked like an Airstream trailer on the deck of the carrier.) Then I realized that they had not been quarantined because they had not actually landed and an 8 year old boy realized that these 3 men might never get the opportunity to do what they had been born to do. I was devastated. These guys and the ones who preceded them and those that followed were my heroes as a kid. They still are.

This is a perfect example of how to take a historic event where everyone knows the ending and still makes it compelling. Ron Howard is really great at real-life depictions. Also James Horner, the composer of Titanic and Avatar, made the music for this movie and Braveheart in the same year. What a boss. Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan were both nominated for Oscars. People say Tom Hanks should've been nominated, but honestly, Ed and Kathleen really anchored the story from the ground perspective.

This was a remarkable true story. I highly recommend reading up on the Apollo missions, as well as checking out FIRST MAN (directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong). Speaking of which, interesting trivia: The man who shakes hands with him (the ship's captain) as the movie ends was the real Jim Lovell. Lovell is still alive (he's currently 94 years old) as is Fred Haise (he is 89). Also, on a side note: It was just announced that one of the Apollo astronauts (Walter Cunningham of Apollo 7) sadly passed away yesterday.

When Ron Howard made this movie, he commented that he was shocked the story wasn’t well-known, even a mere 25 years after it happened. The whole world came together to pray and root for these astronauts… and then just forgot the whole thing. So it’s kind of ironic that the movie itself has kind of fallen off everyone’s radar, too.

Ron Howard is one of the best directors out there when it comes to movies based on real life stories. Cinderella Man, Rush, A Beautiful Mind and Thirteen Lives are all brilliant movies.

Mary I was in third grade when this happened and my teacher Mr Corcoran brought a black and white tv from his house to watch the splashdown while we ate lunch in our classroom. It's cool to see the original broadcast with Walter Cronkite that we saw back then.

I was 11 when Apollo 13 lifted-off. I was a big space fan. Pre home computer, pre cable television, I remember being disappointed when they didn't broadcast on network tv anything between lift off and the explosion. The public was not made aware of a lot of the details but I remember praying for them in school. I love your reaction and appreciate the stress of you not knowing the outcome.

Jack Black's parents both worked for NASA and she brought her work with her to the hospital when she was giving birth. Those calculations she did that day was instrumental in saving the crew of Apollo 13 and bring them home.

There were a lot of cameos in this movie. The best was the real Jim Lovel was the navy officer who shook Tom Hanks hand once he landed on the aircraft carrier. If you liked this movie, there is an HBO mini-series called From the Earth to the Moon, produced by Tom Hanks, that covers the whole space program. Well worth watching.

I watched this movie with my dad. I felt the same way as you did while watching this (heart pounding, etc) and my dad pretty much said that's how the whole world was feeling in 1970.

To be clear, this particular mission did not last 3 weeks. What they were referring to was Lovell's combined time (all missions) that he had been in space. Also, I heard it said that they grossly overdramatized Haise's sickness. He did get sick, but not nearly as bad as what was portrayed in the movie.

The Dish!!! It's around Australia's role in Apollo 11

The actual live recording of the explosion is publicly available. But they're so calm you'd think they were talking about the weather.

A married couple who were friends of mine and a few years younger than myself, were in their teens when the Apollo program was taking place (I was in my early 20's when it ended). I watched this movie with them in the late 1990's, and when it was over, they both seemed stunned that it had been based on actual events. When I asked how they could have missed it given that it was such a huge part of my own growing up in that era, they answered: "Well, it was the early 70's... we were probably stoned out of our minds!" 🤣 At least you have the argument that it was never a big deal in Australia aside from Neil Armstrong and the first trip to the moon.

5:25 the main contributing factors to the fire tragedy he is referring to: 1) they were using a very high concentration of oxygen 2) the doors were designed to open inward so the vacuum of space would serve to suction them closed The high oxygen level level the fire grow and spread extremely fast. With the fire burning and heating the air, the increased pressure inside prevented them from opening the doors, sealing the entire flight team inside a pressure cooker.

"I didn't know the history behind it so NOTHING was spoiled" - Haha - I heard director Ron Howard tell a story that someone confronted him about the movie saying it was typical Hollywood cr*p, so unrealistic...not knowing it was a true story. Sigh...

Crazy fact is that Jack Black's Mom while going into labor provided critical calculations to save the Apollo 13 crew.

The part that gets me every time is, when told of the accident, his young son asks "was it the door?" - absolutely heartbreaking.

Watched the real events as a 16 year old. Pretty accurate movie. Still gets to me.

The spouses' commitment to go through it with their husbands is one of my favorite aspects of this story.

I watched this happen in real time when I was 3 years old. My dad drove us from Charleston, South Carolina down to Florida to watch the launch in person. The ride took around 5 hours so we left early in the morning with a picnic basket. I remember how excited I was to see the rockets. They looked like skyscrapers they were so huge. When it was nearing time for the launch we all sat down on the blanket my mom had laid out for us and nibbled on our food until we heard the squawk of the PA. Everyone stood up and counted down with the man on the PA system. The rocket was so loud I could feel it rumbling in my chest. I remember thinking that it was taking off much slower than I expected so I thought something went horribly wrong. My dad and I always shot bottle rockets on New Year's Eve and 4th of July so I expected the Apollo rocket to take off super fast like they did. Also, like the boy in the movie I was scared of a possible fire because I had been told the story of my birth over and over again. I was born on January 27th, 1967 at 6:32 pm, the exact moment of the Apollo 1 fire. (Those astronauts were taking their last breaths as I was taking first and that thought has always haunted me.) I was standing next to my dad squeezing his leg and didn't let go until the rocket finally took off. During the ride back home I laid in the back window looking up at the sky imagining what the astronauts were doing and pretending I was with them. (There were no seatbelt laws back then so it was very common to see kids riding in the back windows of cars.) I must have fallen asleep because I don't remember getting home or going to bed. The next thing I remember is hearing my mom saying "there's been an accident with the rocket." She was waking me up in the middle of the night so I knew it had to be bad. My dad was pacing back and forth while talking on the phone with his father and I could tell he was distraught. He and my grandfather were connected to one of the astronauts somehow which is why we had driven down to watch the launch. We went over to my grandparent's house and everyone was glued to the TV, watching all of the news updates together, just like they showed in the movie. I can tell you first hand that the re-entry was even more intense than in the movie scene. When they didn't regain radio contact before the timer ran out everyone thought they died during re-entry and even the people on the news were crying. I don't remember hearing them regain contact. I just remember seeing the capsule and the parachute come out of the clouds and hearing everyone screaming while hugging one another. It is my most vivid childhood memory and one I will always cherish. (Coincidentally, my very first memory is Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I was too young to understand what was going on so the only reason I remember it is because my mom told me over and over how important it was and to never forget that moment... so I didn't.

When Kevin Bacon's character received the phone call that he would be on Apollo 13, he was probably already excited. He was just being professional, and didn't want to express himself over the phone.

Interesting fact: The real Jim Lovell appeared briefly at the end of the movie as the Captain of the USS Iwo Jima, the ship that the helicopter that picked the astronauts up landed on. He was the first Navy officer to shake their hands as they disembarked.

If you haven't seen it... aside from From the Earth to the Moon, and The Dish... Hidden Figures, The Right Stuff.

Mary, fun fact. Jack Black’s mother helped design a system that contributed to the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts. The Abort Guidance System, she left work to go to the hospital but brought along a printout of a problem she was working on. She called in the solution - and Jack Black’s birth announcement - from the hospital later that day. She literally helped save those astronauts while in labor and then Jack Black was born.

I was in middle school when this happened. It was like the whole world was holding their breath while this was going on and it was hard to concentrate on anything else. I applaud the amazing group of people that got them home.

"The Right Stuff' is well worth considering. Think of it as a prequel to 'Apollo 13'. 'The Dish' is another great movie, all about how a small Aussie town played an important part in the Apollo 11 landing. The thing was, that Apollo 13 was incredibly lucky. That fault could occurred at literally any time - and at absolutely any other time, the astronauts would have died without question. That the tank blew when it did meant that the crew had access to the connected Lunar Module as a lifeboat. Many valuable lessons were learned and acted on for the later Apollo missions. It has always been absolute tragedy to me that the Apollo Program was cut so short. It should have gone up to 20, at least, whereupon they would have had the know-how for the next phase, building permanent stations and bases. Instead, people in the US government decided that the money was much better spent on supporting corrupt governments in the Middle east and Latin America. Neil Degrasse Tyson did a really good KZfaq about all this - 'We Stopped Dreaming.' Watch iit. Finally, in the 'Believe It Or Not' category. The original proposal in the USA was to demonstrate their technological prowess by, not sending a man to the Moon, but launching and detonating a NUCLEAR WEAPON on the Moon. Thinking being that the fireball would have been visible from Earth. Happily saner heads prevailed (someone later described that entire idea as 'cartoonish supervillainry'). The really awesome takeaway from this is that the Apollo astronauts were true bad@$$e$ - because they were valid substitutes for nuclear weapons. :)

This is one of those great disaster movies where, similarly to Titanic, the buildup to “the accident” is so good that on repeated viewings, you find yourself thinking “maybe this time will be different.”

FYI, Jim Lovell is still alive. He’s 94.

Absolute classic, we all knew the story and we still all cheered at the cinema. It really was a collective experience. The weightless scenes were all done for real on NASA's "vomit comet", now that's film making. Funny I watched Ron Howard's "Thirteen" last night, recommended.

If you liked that you'll love "the Dish", one of the best Aussie movies ever made, also about the Apollo missions. True story and bloody hilarious

I was still in elementary school when this happened. Both at home and at school we were completely consumed by this mission, everyone hoping against hope that they would make it back safely. You're right, it is a stressful watch, even KNOWING how it ends. Imagine how stressful it was in real time as we were all glued to our radios and TV screens for DAYS hoping for good news! You WILL watch it again, I promise you. And James Horner's music is absolutely one of my favourite scores of his...it is just perfect for this film.

There were actually _more_ problems with the mission than were in the movie. The writers cut them out, because they were afraid audiences would think that they were over-dramatizing the story. Even stuff like Marilyn losing her ring in the shower actually happened (she was able to fish her ring out of the drain, though).

Never fight back tears, when people are emotionally moved watching such a film, it is always beautiful.

'Apollo 13' came out when it was the Summer just before I was 6th grade- I kept watching it. It resonated quickly with me after having a VHS my family bought from probably Wal-Mart back then. It resonated with me because I knew my life, family and school life was getting a load of exponents harder than I think I probably knew to some level that both parents were not doing well enough to help me with- counting the fact that they were coming up on more than a year later, finally divorcing. The two in effect were very dysfunctional, angry later era hippies- Dad was and is better at work at least back in the 90s than actually being a person that in the early 80s picked out who would give birth to me.

Mary, Jim's 24 days in space were from 4 missions (2x Gemini missions, 2x Apollo missions), Apollo 13 being the last. This mission wasn't 3 weeks.

Time to add “The Right Stuff” to your watch list. Some of your viewers (like yours truly) watched these stories play out on live tv at the time. Being a kid at the time, the space program was absolute magic. Later in life as an academic, one of my fellow professors (but in the Engineering Department) was part of the mission control team for this mission. Warren’s stories were fascinating to this history professor.

I find it so strange that there are people that don't know the story of Apollo 13

As a person who watched from Gemini through Apollo and upwards,the hopefulness and the “we can do it “ spirit has carried me through many years.

I remember when i was a teenager, i went to the Wright Patterson Airforce Base. The Museum there was fantastic, amd they had a special guest speaker that day, Buzz Aldrin. After his time on stage, he went to the crowd and started talking to people who were there. I got to shake his hand and ask him fun questions.

Saw this as a kid and I was like "yeah space is cool, but I dont need to go there"

This is one of my favorite films. I was a 4th grader in a US Catholic school whne Apollo 13 happened. We had favorite astronauts like favorite athletes back then. My favorite was one of the astronauts who died on Apollo 1. During Apollo 13 we had daily masses to pray for the astronauts. When I watched Apollo 13 in the theater (at 33 years old) I cried, the emotions just sprang out shockingly. I still cry when the little boy asks "Is it the door?"

Brilliant! Really glad you included the Grandma reassuring the scared kid!

It’s so cool seeing a reaction from someone who didn’t know the story! Rest assured though, Mary, the movie was equally stressful for those of us who DID know the story! Ron Howard and co. did such an amazing job in building the tension and piling on the pressure, that even though I knew they made it back when I first saw it, there was such a release of emotion when they finally got home, and to this day it never fails to generate a tear or two! Of course, it takes some liberties for dramatic purposes - it was never Lovell’s call to ditch Mattingley for Swigert (the whole point of having a back-up crew was for situations like that), Swigert was not regarded as being a complete novice, and was in fact the best man to have up there as he’d been responsible for writing all the fault procedures for the CSM etc etc - but it accurately portrays the atmosphere of NASA, the teamwork, the problem solving, the dedication, and proves that you don’t have to dumb down or overly sensationalise something to make it entertaining. It’s essentially the antithesis of a Michael Bay movie!

The HBO miniseries "From the earth to the moon" was created after this movie came out, produced by Tom Hanks. Pretty good.

MARY, AS SOMEONE WHO WAS ALIVE WHEN THIS HAPPENED I REALLY LOVE WATCHING PEOPLE REACT TO THIS FILM!! RON HOWARD DID A FANTASTIC JOB OF TELLING THIS STORY ALONG WITH THE EPIC SOUNDTRACK IT'S ONE OF THE BEST FILMS EVER MADE IN MY OPINION!! I WAS 13 YEARS OLD WHEN THIS WAS HAPPENING AND I HAD BEEN A REALLY HUGE FAN OF THE SPACE PROGRAM FROM THE TIME THAT I WAS A CHILD IN GRAMMAR SCHOOL, AS WE CALL IT IN THE U.S. I CAN REMEMBER DOING A SCHOOL PROJECT IN THE 6TH GRADE AND I CHOSE TO WRITE ABOUT PROJECT GEMINI WHICH WAS THE SECOND STEP IN OUR SPACE PROGRAM TOWARDS THE MOON!! THE FIRST STEP BEING PROJECT MERCURY WITH THE ORIGINAL SEVEN ASTRONAUTS AND PERFECTING LAUNCHING INTO SPACE AND ORBITING THE EARTH!! THEN CAME PROJECT GEMINI WHICH WERE TWO MEN CAPSULES AND THIS STAGE WAS TO PERFECT RENDEZVOUS AND DOCKING TECHNIQUES THAT WERE NEEDED IN ORDER TO GO TO THE MOON!! STEP 3 WAS PROJECT APOLLO!! I ACTUALLY HAD A SCALE MODEL OF THE SATURN 5 ROCKET WITH STAGES THAT SEPARATED AND IT WAS COMPLETE WITH A LUNAR MODULE WHICH YOU COULD ACTUALLY DOCK THE COMMAND MODULE TO!! IF I STILL HAD THAT MODEL IT WOULD PROBABLY BE WORTH A FORTUNE!! ALL THE NEWSCASTERS AND TELEVISION STUFF THAT THEY SHOWED WERE ALL THE REAL NEWSMEN THAT WERE BROADCASTING AT THE TIME OF THIS INCIDENT!! THIS MISSION MAY HAVE BEEN MORE SPECTACULAR THAN EVEN LANDING ON THE MOON ITSELF!! THIS SHOWED THE TRUE RESOURCEFULNESS AND PROFESSIONALISM AND EXPERTISE OF EVERY MEMBER OF THE CREW AND ON THE GROUND THAT WERE ABLE TO GET THESE MEN HOME SAFELY!! IT WAS A VERY PROUD FEELING TO BE AN AMERICAN IN THOSE DAYS, A LOT MORE UNITY THAN WE SEEM TO HAVE NOW IN OUR COUNTRY UNFORTUNATELY!! 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲

It's always fun to watch the reactions of younger folks who never experienced or learned about this event. It was as tense in real life. We were all glued to our TVs, or to our transistor radios from the moment they broadcast the first "Special Report" on thru the arrival on the carrier. In the film, the Navy Captain who greeted Tom Hanks was the real-life Jim Lovell.

FWIW, this really was a big deal at the time. I was in kindergarden, and remember running home from school and asking my mom "are the astronauts ok?"

Mary, they weren't in space for 3 weeks. Jim's 24 days is as a total from his other missions to that day. Apollo 13 was in space for a little more than 5 days

The fact that so many young people don't know how the movie ends until they see it :(

I mean this movie inspired me to get my degree in astrophysics . It’s a 10/10 not much more to say. I was never wanting to be an astronaut my field is in exoplanets but still obviously I love all things space. Hell just a few weeks ago I streamed the launch of the Orion craft and the touch down of it, fun stuff

The Right Stuff (1983) is a film about early space travel history. Plus there is an Australia component later on that film.

I saw this movie when it came out. I was a little boy when this actually happened, and we were all transfixed at school as we watched every day during class what was going on. I was so moved by this film that I saw it 3 times ! The lift off sequence and seeing it on the big screen was spectacular!! Jim Lovell, thank God, had the most experience in space than any other astronaut in the program, and led all of them during this life and death situation. He was on Apollo 8, which was the first mission to go around the moon, and also was the mission that first showed the Earth from outer space back to us on TV!!!!

Mary, love your videos! To continue your 'space education', review HBO's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON .. .. Hanks/Spielberg first venture with HBO .. .. You realize how brave everyone was in the space program and how NASA eventually bankrupted Russia and ended the Cold War .. .. Keep up the great work!!

The sequence in the movies with the rocket launching was so realistic that Buzz Aldrin called Ron Howard asking which vault they found the footage used. Ron had to explain that it was created specially for the film using a combination of miniatures and CGI. Upon hearing that, Buzz said, "That was pretty good. Can we (meaning NASA) use it? C

The cause of the event was a handling error during assembly and testing of the oxygen tank. It was NOT Jack Sweichart's fault. And the guy who shakes Tom Hanks' hand onboard the aircraft carrier is the real-life Jim Lovell.

There’s a shot Ron Howard did of the capsule burning up upon re-entry back to Earth, which was replicated by his daughter Bryce of the Razor Crest in the beginning of Season 2, Episode 3 of The Mandalorian.

_The Right Stuff_ (1983) has been suggested by others and I quite concur that you'll enjoy it. It's about the early days of NASA, the Mercury and Gemini programs. Sam Shepard plays Chuck Yaeger, America's greatest test pilot. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American to fly to space, aboard Mercury Seven. Ed Harris plays John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, aboard Friendship Seven.

I was 16 when this happened. I can remember my family gathered around the TV watching everything. As for Ron Howard, an excellent movie with (a very young) him as an actor, American Graffiti is a classic. It's also the movie George Lucas made just before Star Wars.

One thing to mention. Is when Tom Hanks is walking on the Air Craft Carry after returning and shaking hands is that the Navy Officer with white hair is Jim Lovell in his own uniform. Its a nice touch having him be in the movie

The 24 days was Jim's total time in space, this includes previous trips.

Is there a chance you watch the original Star Trek films?

Another similar movie is First Man directed by Damien Chazelle

I've watched this movie dozens of times, and it still puts me on the edge of my seat.

The real guys were utter professionals. Cold as ice. If you've ever listened to the actual audio, far from being panicked, they sound like they were about a half-step from falling asleep.

For Australian space history, you should do a reaction to “The Dish” from (2000)! Highly recommend, great film!

if you enjoyed this one, then you may also enjoy The Right Stuff (1983)

This movie came out when I was in secondary school (high school). I knew nothing of the events before this as I was born 9 years after them. I saw the trailer and a poster at school that gave me some idea of the events. I went to see it at the cinema and I tell you, nearly 30 years later. It feels EXACTLY the way it did on the first watch, and I cry every time upon the build-up to re-entry. No other film has ever touched me the same way.

My father was one of the engineers who designed that heatshield. We watched this on TV, and all my dad kept saying during that 3 minutes of silence was "The shield'll hold. The shield'll hold". He was right. He passed away in 2013.

Mary, Watch Tom Hanks & Gary Sinise reunited again in Forrest Gump. You're going to love it trust me 😉.

It was funny that after the movie came out the filmmakers were contacted by NASA asking where did they get the footage of Apollo 13 launch because it wasn’t in there archives and they wanted the originals, not knowing it was all done with special effects and models

I knew the story, I've seen the movie, I've seen others react to it... and I still get goosebumps at the 4+ minute mark when the static kicks on. (And yes, I knew the delay was "extra long" so it shouldn't matter...) They say that most of it, except the "blame game" as you put it was really accurate. The three in space never got... in each others face like that scene implied.

I was 4 years old when this happened. I remamber my parents had dozens of people at the house watching the entry live. When they learned the astronauts had survived they all wailed a cheered.

The reentry took far longer than normal because the capsule had an abnormally shallow trajectory (though still within limits).

At 3:34, the actor on the left side of the screen is legendary film director/producer Roger Corman. Corman also has a small role in "The Silence of the Lambs."

I enjoyed watching this movie while listening to Jim and Marilyn doing the commentary over the top. Jim was very happy with how Ron Howard handled the story, and he said that the only thing that Ron took licence with was the scene where they're all yelling at each other. Jim said that never happened, but he understood why Ron stuck that in there.

in an interview that neil had done (and he did not do too many interviews), he stated what he originally said was `that was a small step for man, and one giant leap for mankind'.

I was 14 when this happened. They gave us the day off school so we could watch the end. I was glued to the television, along with just about everyone else capable.

I'm a Boomer and a NASA and space nut. I grew up with the space program. I watched it all live. But the movie still had me on the edge of my seat! Bravo!

Ron Howard was also an actor who played Opie on The Andy Griffith Show as well as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days and also acted in American Graffiti which was directed by George Lucas. Howard went on to direct films such as Splash, Night Shift, Willow, Backdraft as well as A Beautiful Mind which won Best Picture as well as him winning Best Director..He directed Cocoon, and even The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey. His father Rance, also an actor , played the priest in the Lovell home and his brother Clint played one of the Mission Control men who advises to abandon the moon.

I was lucky enough to cross paths with an old-timer who was the 2nd engineer in charge of designing/programming the guidance system for the Apollo missions. We got to talking about lawnmowers and he invited me over to his house for Ginger Ale and looking at all his old NASA souvenirs. Unforgettable.