theme from 2001. >> april 13, 1970, the moon could only be described as relaxed apollo 13, man's fifth lunar mission. the third scheduled to land on the moon continued its tranquil coast. >> it's a nice evening and we are going to close out on a pleasant evening. >> 13, we have got one more item for you when you have a chance. stir up your cry of tanks. >> ok. >> we're looking for compensation if you need it. >> ok, stand by. ok, we've had a problem here. >> say that again, please? >> we've had a main be interval. >> ok, standby we are looking at it. >> had a pretty large bang associated with the caution and warning. it spiked on us once before. we are starting to button up the tunnel again. >> april 11, 1970. launch day. jim lovell, commander in veteran of three previous missions had orbited the moon christmas, 1968 on apollo eight. fred hayes his first time up lunar module pilot. jack swaggart, command module pilot. three days ago he was on the backup crew. now he replaced ken mattingly. mattingly had been dropped from the mission because he was exposed to german measles. he would watch the launch from mission control. >> auto sequence initiated. >> roger. complete. >> roger. type booster? we are on internal power and will go. the mcc recorder is at flight speeds. >> ignition. >> set to go, all engines. >> looks good here. >> ok. that's what it looks like. ok, we are going one. >> roger. >> booster how do you look? >> looks good. >> we are go, flight. >> ok. >> looks good, flight. >> ok, looks fine. through the window and rocket boosters? you are go. >> climbing in board? staying in flight. >> roger, flight booster ok. >> you don't see a problem with that, do you? >> the next step was to pull free of the first stage and dock with the lunar module aquarius, and jack swaggart. pulling aquarius away from the saturn third stage. >> i can see it now at the hatch window. >> odyssey and aquarius moved away from earth for the moon. >> we have had a hardware restart. i don't know what it was. >> i believe the crew reported it. >> we are main be interval. >> we hit a pretty large bang that was associated with the caution and warning there. >> the sensation that i had felt was a vibration accompanying the bang. not a large vibration. a shudder. >> are there any kind of leads that we can give them? and we have real problems or what? >> 02 pressure under fuel cell one with 13 psi under fuel cell pressure. >> you want to open one and three? >> that's fine. shut down the reactions. ask for reconfirmation. when you do that you shut these things down. >> it looks to me that we are vetting something. -- venting something. venting something out into space. >> everybody let's think of the things that we could be venting. anything that looks abnormal in your system? see anything with the instrumentation that you have got? >> that's flying fine. >> ok, let's scan it. >> here is a bulletin from abc news. the apollo 13 spacecraft has had a serious power supply malfunction that could cause the landing mission to be terminated early. >> i assume you called in the backup to see if we can get some more brainpower? >> roger. >> at the moment the astronauts are trying to isolate their trouble. late reports show that the spacecraft is operating on battery power alone with unnecessary whitman being turned off. >> everybody, let's keep cool. the lens is still attached, the lens spacecraft, so if we need to get back home we have that to do a good portion with it. it's make sure we don't do anything that is going to blow the csm electrical power with the batteries or that will cause us to lose fuel cell number two. ok? we want to keep the 02 working with rcs and the command module system. we are in good shape if we need to get home. let's solve the problem but not make it worse by guessing. >> my concern was increasing all the time. from -- i wonder what this will do to the landing 2 -- i wonder if we can get back home again. >> ok, i'm coming back to you. let's go ahead. >> best and we can do right now is start a power down. >> it was apparent to me that it was just a question of time until the command module was dead. >> the fuel cell does not pump often, does it? >> let's make sure that we don't blow the whole mission. >> the thing that concerns me is throwing equipment. we had a problem. we don't know the cause. >> i've got a feeling that we lost to fuel cells. i hate to put it that way, but i don't know why we have lost them. >> ring me up another computer. will you? >> we have got one machine building the same piece downstairs. >> i want another machine with a bunch of guys capable of running logs down there. >> this all means speculation at this point. although there has been a tumbling or rotation of the spacecraft, the astronauts do not appear to be in immediate danger. >> i tell you what, can you get somebody in the back room to try to figure out what the equivalent alta is? so that we can see if we can backtrack to figure out what is venting? >> i will give it a try. >> i looked up and saw both oxygen pressures going down. it dawned on me -- i'm sure it dawned on jack at about the same time that we were indeed in serious trouble. the only way to survive the situation was to transfer. >> i would say that this is a serious situation, as serious as we have ever had in manned space flight. if at anytime in the mission it had separated, we would have gotten ourselves into a rendezvous situation with the command module around the moon. then what you had stated was true, it would be a fatal situation. >> go ahead, flight. >> get some guys spitting out minimum power to sustain life. >> the accident occurred 200,000 miles from earth. they rode in the lunar module attached to a lifeless command module. apollo 13 had started as a mission of scientific exploration. it was now a matter of survival. since the command module was dead except for the oxygen in power for reentry, the guidance platform of aquarius designed to land on and take off from the moon would have to be used. >> the first milestone -- i consider this after the accident, i guess, was the survival now, the first milestone was to get alignment on the platform. alignment is important because without knowing exactly which way the attitude was in space there's no way to tell how to use the engine for the spacecraft to get the proper trajectory to come home. >> from the position that we are now, we have to go around the moon to get back. you would have had enough capability with the engine, but we don't use them. we have to go to the backside of the moon and come back. >> to get into the correct orbit around the moon the crew had burned out of a trajectory that would automatically bring them back to earth. they would have to get back onto lysacek horse towards earth. >> scene needs to put the throttle also. >> to minimum? >> you that 29% right now. >> the maneuver was completed on time and because it was manual we had a three-man operation where jack took care of the time and he would tell us when to stop it. that handled the maneuver and i push the button to start and stop the engine. >> aquarius, go for the burn. >> in. >> aquarius, you are looking good. >> auto shutdown. >> the first problem solved. they were back on the path to earth. but there were many other problems to be solved. from a building at the houston manned spacecraft center, systems experts coordinated the effort to get the crew back. one of the big problems was consumables. there would be enough to eat and drink, but in space there are other factors. water, oxygen, food. >> they are concentrating on everything. their lives are dependent upon it at the moment. there's nothing that we can do about that now. it appears at the present time that everything is under control and that we have a save situation at the moment. >> i want to thank you guys for doing good work. >> you guys? >> we are about 17 hours from home. we think we have the situation in control. we have projected the consumables is described and we have a plan for the rest of the mission. there will be no relaxation at all. >> a key decision had to be made before apollo 13 went behind the moon. where to bring them down. their present course were taken to the indian ocean, where recovery would be difficult. a burn to go quicker would take them near the recovery forces. bringing them home even faster would place them in the south atlantic away from recovery forces. it was decided to take them to the pacific. >> these simulators here at the cape, the contract moves continuously ever since last night. we have tried to simulate virtually everything we have had the crew do that is nonnormal that they have done. we have proven most everything that we have been able to run on the simulator prior to passing it up to them. at least we've checked the feasibility of everything we've done and we will continue to do that. >> they passed 137 miles from the moon. for jim lovell it was the second time he had seen the moon so near. but there was no time for contemplation, another critical burn was coming. >> put away the cameras. we have one chance. >> in houston the news men poured in to tell an anxious world the story. shortly after apollo 13 had separated from the third stage the stage had been sent on to a trajectory towards the moon. the impact would be recorded by the seismometer left by apollo 12. >> by the way, aquarius, we see the results now from the seismometer on 12. looks like your booster just hit the moon. it's rocking and a little bit over. >> well, at least something worked on this flight. >> at least we did not have the lamb impact two. >> go for the burn. >> guidance ok? control ok? >> we are go flight. >> we are good, flight. >> ground confirms ignition. >> 40%. >> houston, you are looking good. >> roger. >> to conserve power in cooling water the crews shut down all of the vital life-sustaining systems. >> i think that the spacecraft is in excellent shape and fully capable of getting the crew back. more get more of these -- i think that this was a good case in point. >> cooling water, electric power. >> it was leaking at caps off. i guess it is. it took me two days to get him and him are all aware that the temperatures were going down with him. him him him made very. him him him him him himhim and hihim >> lord, your astronauts will come back safe. >> i asked the entire audience for a moment of prayer. for the crew men of the apollo 13. we will hold for silence for a moment. >> rcs stands at 6.2%, envy at -- and the at 6.2%. >> we've gone ahead of a long time without any sleep. thinking about sleep again. i didn't care about these at all. >> at cap slowly going down in temperature just prior to reentry. it was down about 38 degrees. along with that there was this chilling coolness. it was not too healthy. i recall getting it with the food. >> if you want my opinion on how to handle the situation they handled it exactly like we expected them to. as well on top of it as anyone could be knowing what we know. but i think that they did everything right. i think that they did a beautiful job of it. >> they were put on and buttoned up. >> the astronauts faced another problem. there am exhaled breath. the lithium oxide chemical to take carbon dioxide out of the air was not sufficient in the lunar module. they would have to adapt the canisters from the command modules to fit the hoses. on the ground and adapter was fashioned from materials that crews had available. cardboard for a checklist. plastic bad. tape. the directions for construction were sent up to aquarius. >> at this point in time it was reading about 15 millimeters. we constructed these things and put them on line and i think that within an hour the partial pressure was down to 2/10. >> survival now became about initiative and ingenuity. things like extending our general lifetime. >> where two, flight? >> ignition. the thrust looks good. >> shutdown. >> hang in there, it won't be long. >> there were moments when i did not know how many can you mobile's we had. in a situation like that there is only one thing that you can do, keep going. you just keep taking up ways for more consumables, so that's exactly what we did. >> on april 17 they prepared for reentry. after a small course correction burn, they jettisoned the damaged service module. >> copy that. >> there is one whole side of the spacecraft missing. >> is that right? >> the whole panel is blown out. from the base to the engine. >> it's really a mess. >> that's unbelievable. >> next they got act into odyssey to jettison aquarius prior to reentry to the atmosphere. >> ok, copy that. >> thank you. >> ok, l os in a minute or a minute and a half. charlie, welcome home. >> thanks. >> odyssey, houston standing by. over. >> odyssey, houston, we show you on the mains and it would -- really looks great. >> apollo 13 apollo 13, this is recovery, over. >> roger apollo 13. looks good. apollo 13, this is recovery. we have served your burn. over. >> over. >> the suits are displaced and in the water. >> the files came up. >> four to one for the advanced module. >> approximately 15 degrees. >> we started carrying the other units. >> that's upheld. [applause] >> i recall, captain, that when i spoke to you on the phone he said that you regretted that you were unable to complete your mission. i hereby declare that this was a successful mission. from the start the exploration of space has been hazardous adventure. the voyage of apollo 13 dramatized the risks. the men of apollo 13, by their poise and skill, under the most intense kind of pressure, epitomized the character that accepts danger and surmounts it. there is the spirit that builds america. your mission served your country. it served to remind us all of our proud heritage as a nation. to remind us that in this age of technicians and scientific marvels that the individual still counts. that in a crisis the character of a man or of men will make the difference. >> go, procedure. go, network. go. go. >> rtc? >> on the conference. >> let's play it cool. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] flex here are a few of the festivals we will be covering this thing on "tv." we will visit maryland for live coverage of gaithersburg festival with tom davis and martin frost, as well as former senior adviser to president obama, david axelrod, closing out the month of may in new york city at the book expo. on the first week in june we are alive for the printers fast including our three hour in-depth probe -- program this spring on book tv. >> the fall of saigon was nearly 40 years ago. on april 30, 1975. next, the university of louisville posts a panel of south vietnamese refugees, including veterans of the south vietnamese army and air force, they reflect on the vietnam war experience and escape from the country following the fall of saigon. panelists eventually settled in kentucky. this is about an hour and half. >> i would like to introduce the moderators for tonight. dd and donald. they are amazing folks and they are the leading effort behind moving voices and this evening tonight. it is amazing to have worked with them over the last few in putting together this event. dd is a daughter of vietnam war refugees and an attorney. she is also u of l alum. and this makes me proud, she will enter the army jag core this friday. this really is her last big event in civilian life that she's joining us at. 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