Apollo 13 is the most memorable deep space rescue mission in the storied annals of American manned spaceflight history. Clearly one of NASA’s finest moments, the rescue took center stage during a rare video reunion hosted by the San Diego Air & Space Museum on Friday, April 17, 2020, exactly 50 years to the day of the splash down of one of NASA’s most heralded missions.

“Apollo 13 is THE American success story and was told by the men who were responsible for the rescue and who were actually there,” said Jim Kidrick, President & CEO of the San Diego Air & Space Museum. “This is an incredible opportunity to see and hear from the men who were the right team at the right time – and how people working together can overcome anything they set their minds to accomplish. With all that’s going on in the world today, it’s time to acknowledge our human abilities to conquer the unknown and unexpected. Taking on life’s challenges and winning is what we do as a species. Celebrating Apollo 13 is perfectly timed for what the world is experiencing right now.”

All of the key players from the Apollo 13 mission took part in the reunion, including Commander Jim Lovell, Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise, Lead Mission Flight Director Milt Windler, and Mission Flight Directors Gerry Griffin, Gene Kranz and Glynn Lunney. The event was expertly moderated by Jim Kidrick, President & CEO of the Museum, and Mark Larson, the Museum’s Chairman of the Board. The event was the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the Apollo 13 team’s candid comments, where they shared the real-life story in their own words of the teamwork required to save the spacecraft and crew from certain death.

Click here to view the entire video on the Museum’s new YouTube channel today, and be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates when we upload new videos.

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