Most people know that this expression originates from the 1970 Apollo 13 mission to the moon and that it was Commander James Lovell who said it.
Most people are wrong, not only about what was said but who said it.
On April 13, 1970, the Apollo 13 mission was 200,000 miles from earth on its way to the moon. The crew, consisting of John Swigert, Fred Haise and James Lovell, had just finished a 49-minute TV broadcast when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up, causing the No. 1 tank to also fail. Electricity, light and water were lost as well.
This is what was actually said between the astronauts and mission control:
Swigert: "Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here."
Mission control: "This is Houston. Say again, please."
Lovell: "Uh, Houston, we’ve had a problem."
In large part, the culprit for most people misquoting this expression is the movie, Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks as James Lovell, for which the script writers changed both the tense and the speaker.
But, according to the Washington Post, the rot had set in earlier. In 1983, NASA titled one of its weekly radio programs "Houston, We Have a Problem," and even earlier, in 1974, Universal Television produced a TV movie about the Apollo 13 mission (which Lovell hated, describing it as "fictitious and in poor taste.") which was also titled "Houston, We Have a Problem."
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