Minute 116: Back in Business

Apollo 13 Minute Podcast

GUEST: PATRICK MULLANE

Jay Lovell watches ABC News Science Reporter Jules Bergman as he sits in a classroom at St. John’s Military Academy in Wisconsin.

“…surviving by using the LM’s systems, there can be no easy maneuver,” says Bergman. “And their LM lifeboat is doing things and working longer then it was ever intended to. It’s a race against time until splashdown.”

In the Command Module, Jack Swigert is talking to Ken Mattingly back at Mission Control.

“Okay, Jack,” says Mattingly. “We’re ready to see if the computer will accept uplink of the re-entry data now.” The status lights of the IMU blink on.

“Okay,” says Swigert, “The IMU’s up. We got our eight-balls back.”

Haise and Lovell continue to stow extra ballast in the CM’s storage lockers.

“Copy that,” replies Mattingly.

“Okay, Ken,” says Swigert. “Uplink telemetry, command module to accept, right?”

“That’s affirm,” agrees Mattingly. “Go ahead and try it.”

The controllers at the MCC stare expectently at their monitors.

“Come on,” says Gene Kranz.

Swigert throws the UP TLM switch to “ACCEPT.” Program 20 activates with Verb 37 and Nound 00.

Lights blink. Swigert smiles.

“Uplink completed,” says Swigert.

One of the controller’s monitors switches from a graph showing “REGION III FLOW COMPARISON” to a grid of “CSM ECS-CRYD TAB” listings. The data starts filling in the many fields on the screen.

“Yeah. That’s more like it!” says Mattingly.

“Back in business!” says John Aaron.

IN THIS MINUTE:

Jules Bergman as Himself

Max Elliott Slade as Jay Lovell

Kevin Bacon as Jack Swigert

Bill Paxton as Fred Haise

Gary Sinese as Ken Mattingly

Loren Dean as John Aaron

Clint Howard as Sy Liebergot

Ed Harris as Gene Kranz

Marc McClure as Glynn Lunney

Walter von Huene as Technician