50 Years Ago Today - Houston, we've had a problem, became a solution!

Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched by NASA from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) failed two days into the mission. Check out the great podcast on this flight at 13 Minutes to the Moon.

On the evening of April 13, when the crew was 200,000 miles from Earth and closing in on the moon, mission controller Sy Liebergot saw a low-pressure warning signal on a hydrogen tank in Odyssey. Mission commander Jim Lovell gave the call to command module pilot Jack Swigert (who was subbing on the mission for Ken Mattingly) to stir the tank, and Fred Haise lunar module pilot was along for the next several days of what became the most famous missions in USA space history. On April 17th the crew splashed down in the Pacific to complete the mission that Flight Commander Gene Kranz stated his most well-known quotes "Failure is not an option" and "With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour."

As we live through our own crisis today, let us not forget how a team came together to get three American heroes back home safely. Back in 1970, it took 100,000's of people to come together as one to get an impossible job done. Let this event 50 years ago today show us what can happen when people pull together, this example reminds us how we will again complete this difficult mission we are now facing.