"Houston, We Have a Problem": Apollo 13 & NASA on Film

"Houston, we have a problem" is one of the most famous lines in the movies — and Houston is exactly where the real drama unfolded, at the sprawling Johnson Space Center southeast of the city. Ron Howard's 1995 film Apollo 13 recreated the near-disaster of the April 1970 lunar mission, when an oxygen tank exploded and Mission Control in Houston had to improvise a way to bring three astronauts home alive. Howard built his Mission Control on a soundstage in California, but he shot at the real NASA campus, used genuine agency personnel as extras, and flew his actors on NASA's KC-135 "Vomit Comet" out of Ellington Field to film the weightless scenes for real. This driving loop takes you to the actual places behind the movie — the space center, its visitor complex, the airfield where the zero-gravity magic happened, and the neighborhoods NASA built. It's where film history and space history are the same story.