Review: Netflix's “Apollo 13: Survival” is an excellent examination of NASA's finest hour

Most of us are familiar with NASA's aborted 1970 moon landing mission from director Ron Howard's excellent feature film Apollo 13, released in 1995, and the grim declaration by Tom Hanks' commander Jim Lovell: “Houston, we have a problem.” The actual words were actually “Houston, we have a problem,” but that's just Hollywood's artistic license (and since it's one of the best space movies of all time, we'll let it go).

And you've all seen Kevin Bacon, who plays pilot Jack Swigert in the film, in the command module when he flips a switch that moves the oxygen tanks and accidentally sets off an explosion that causes gases to escape into space, which would prevent the landing. So the crew had to resort to Aquarius, their trusty lunar module, which was scheduled to land in the Fra Mauro Highlands, as a temporary lifeboat until they could strategize how to repair their ailing spacecraft and return home.