Apollo 13: A Successful Failure

After Apollo 11, many Americans were very content with the fact that they beat the Russians to the moon. After that night when everybody was tuned on their TV's to see the first man land on the moon for the very first time, everybody cheered for this accomplishment. Neil Armstrong became like an American Hero from outer space on July 20th, 1969. Because the whole nation was tuned in to watch this memorable moment, the astronauts from the future Apollo 13 were too, watching this magnificent scene. James A. Lowell, Fred W. Haise, and Ken Mattingly, who was last minute replaced by John L. "Jack" Swigert because of fear of being exposed to measles, which he never contracted, were the future astronauts for Apollo 13.

Apollo 13 was the third mission to land on the moon, but an explosion of one of the oxygen tanks caused the astronauts many problems. The mission of landing on the moon had to be aborted immediately for the sake of the astronaut's life. Lovell (played by Tom Hanks in the film) was of course disappointed as well as Haise (Bill Paxton) and Swigert (Kevin Bacon). The mission, who was thought as routine from the American nation because of the other two successful moon landings, became the mission that everyone was talking about. The question on everybody's mind was if the astronauts would return home to see another day. For this to be able to happen, everything had to run perfectly according to plan, gratefully, it did. On the day of April 17, 1970 the crew landed safely on Earth to tell the tale.

Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard, was an excellent movie, no wonder it is your favorite Benford. The movie truly follows step by step the challenges of the astronauts of Apollo 13 on April of 1970. The cast really works together to the extent that the viewer truly believes that this is the real mission they are watching. Mr. Howard does a splendid job in the directing of this motion picture. Apollo 13 was called "a successful failure" because it did not make it to the moon, that's the failure part, everything else was successful because it showed that NASA had its finest hour by returning the astronauts home, demonstrating its marvelous capabilities.