Did we do everything right? Did we do everything we could?
I entered a phase of deep depression.
I was just kind of wondering
what maybe we did wrong or what did I miss?
And now it's in the lap of the gods.
We had predicted the beginning of blackout and we had predicted the end of
blackout and we had those two times on a countdown clock up on the front wall
which we had done on every mission. And we usually within a second hit those
right on the money we had on every flight. And for some reason on [Apollo] 13 when
it was supposed to come out, nothing.
Ten seconds go by, 15 seconds go by,
30 seconds go by, and you start to think oh uh, that's new
and then first thing you know it's a minute.
Everybody's faces showed
concern and everything got quiet.
And that's what I entered a phase of deep
depression that, oh my gosh they had some damage to the heat shield and they aren't going to make it.
You're at the point where there's nothing you can do next if
something bad has happened it will have to play itself out without our help.
Well I was sitting at home amongst many people everyone was there to watch
the landing with me and I was surrounded but my children. It was so quiet you
could hear a pin drop because it was so tense very tense.
We didn't ourselves know that the blackout period was longer than it
should have been and we had no idea, We just never heard anything from
mission control calling us. And we didn't bother to call while we were
still having a lot of g-loading on us.
Joe Kerwin was the CAPCOM he started
calling "Apollo 13 this is Houston, over". And no answer.
CAPCOM why don't you try and give them a call.
Odyssey, Houston standing by, over.
Suddenly I hear "Okay Joe".
Okay Joe.
They made it, it's good. You could put the
microphone down and relax.
Of course most of us in the control centre hell almost fell over.
All of a sudden the screen came on and there were parachutes on the
screen in front of us and there was joy and clapping and hollering and
it was a very emotional time.
I think it's said in the movie, it wasn't said
by a Nasa or us but it was Nasa's finest hour and in many ways it was.
Yes! They were alive, they had survived the entry and we had performed a miracle.