NASA's 'Apollo 13: Home Safe' for the 50th anniversary of a 'successful failure'

I didn't keep all of the promise I made in Apollo 8's Earthrise 50 years later for Christmas Eve to blog about the 50th anniversaries of the rest of the Apollo missions.  I did get around to writing about Apollo 11 but skipped Apollos 9, 10, and 12.  Sorry.  I needed a reminder to write about them and I didn't see any.  That's not the case with Apollo 13, as NASA created Apollo 13: Home Safe and uploaded it to its YouTube channel on Friday.  Watch along with me.

"Houston, we've had a problem." Apollo 13 has become known as “a successful failure” that saw a safe return of the crew in spite of a catastrophic explosion in the middle of their lunar journey. This 30-minute documentary features interviews with Apollo 13 Astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise, as well as Flight Directors Gene Kranz and Glynn Lunney, with engineer Hank Rotter. Parts of their interviews take place in the restored Apollo mission control room. This documentary also features original NASA footage and newly synchronized audio from Mission Control.

Thanks to Stephen Slater and Ben Feist/Apollo in Real-Time (apolloinrealtime.org/13) for providing additional footage and audio.

Let this serve as an example of what some of the best minds in the U.S. government can do in an emergency.  May the best minds we have now do their best to get us out of our current crisis.