Apollo 13 Trivia
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This Apollo 13 trivia quiz has 110 free questions with answers and covers both the mission and the movie. On the mission side: the rubella scare that swapped the crew two days out, the tank stir and the 95 seconds before the bang, the lunar module lifeboat, the free-return and PC+2 burns, the mailbox built from duct tape and manual covers, the 3 °C cabin and 200 ml water ration, the six-minute blackout, the review board and the Grumman towing invoice. On the film side: how Tom Hanks beat Kevin Costner to the part, the KC-135 zero-g shoot, who turned down Swigert and Haise, Ron Howard's family cameos, the line Gene Kranz never said, the Oscars it won and lost, and where it bends the record. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen the film; hard ones want the tank's manufacturer and the university that solved the docking-tunnel problem. Every answer has been checked against the encyclopaedia entries for the mission and the film, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 110 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which year did Apollo 13 fly?
1970
Apollo 13 launched on 11 April 1970 and splashed down six days later on 17 April 1970; it was meant to be the third crewed Moon landing, after Apollo 11 and 12.
Q 02Which mission did Jim Lovell fly in December 1968, before commanding Apollo 13?
Apollo 8
Apollo 8, in December 1968, was the first crewed flight to orbit the Moon; Lovell was its command module pilot and had already flown Gemini 7 and Gemini 12, making him NASA's most experienced astronaut.
Q 03What exploded aboard Apollo 13 two days into the flight?
An oxygen tank in the service module
A routine stir of the tank ignited damaged wire insulation, and the blast vented both of the service module's oxygen tanks to space.
Q 04Which spacecraft did the Apollo 13 crew use as a 'lifeboat' after the explosion?
The lunar module
The lunar module, designed to keep two men alive on the Moon for about two days, became a lifeboat: Houston improvised ways for it to support three men for most of the trip home.
Q 05Who played Jim Lovell in the 1995 film Apollo 13?
Tom Hanks
The script was written with Kevin Costner in mind because he looked like Lovell, but Hanks won the part for his knowledge of space history.
Q 06Who directed the 1995 film Apollo 13?
Ron Howard
Ron Howard directed Apollo 13, his follow-up to The Paper (1994); his father Rance, his wife Cheryl and his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard all have small parts in it.
Q 07Which famous movie line from Apollo 13 was never actually said during the mission?
Failure is not an option
'Failure is not an option' was coined by the screenwriters after flight controller Jerry Bostick told them failure was never considered; Gene Kranz liked it enough to title his 2000 memoir with it.
Q 08Which mission crew member was grounded two days before launch after being exposed to rubella?
Ken Mattingly
Ken Mattingly, the prime command module pilot, had been exposed to German measles through backup crewman Charles Duke and was replaced by his own backup; he never fell ill and later flew Apollo 16.
Q 09Which two Academy Awards did Apollo 13 (1995) win from its nine nominations?
Best Film Editing and Best Sound
Apollo 13 won Best Film Editing (Mike Hill and Dan Hanley) and Best Sound at the 1996 ceremony, losing Best Picture to Braveheart; it joined the National Film Registry in 2023.
Q 10Where did the Apollo 13 command module splash down?
The South Pacific Ocean
The command module splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean southeast of American Samoa on 17 April, and the crew were aboard USS Iwo Jima within about 45 minutes.
Q 11What was the call sign of Apollo 13's lander?
Aquarius
Lovell took it from Aquarius the water-bearer, not from the song in Hair as some reporters assumed.
Q 12What was the call sign of the Apollo 13 command module?
Odyssey
Odyssey was Lovell's choice for the command module; he liked the dictionary definition — a long voyage with many changes of fortune — which proved apt.
Q 13What did the Apollo 13 crew and Mission Control famously improvise from duct tape, plastic and cardboard?
A carbon dioxide scrubber adapter
The 'mailbox' was a carbon dioxide scrubber adapter that let the command module's square lithium hydroxide canisters work in the lander's round receptacles; CAPCOM Joe Kerwin read up the build instructions.
Q 21How much water was each Apollo 13 crewman rationed per day on the way home?
About 200 millilitres
Each man was rationed about 200 millilitres (six ounces) of water a day on the return, a fifth of normal intake; the crew lost 14 kg between them and came home with 12.8 kg of water to spare.
Q 22How cold did it get inside the darkened Apollo 13 spacecraft?
As low as 3 °C
Lovell decided spacesuits would be too hot, so he and Haise wore their lunar boots and the third man pulled on an extra coverall.
Q 23Which Apollo 13 crew member developed a urinary tract infection on the way home?
Fred Haise
Q 14Which actor played flight director Gene Kranz in Apollo 13?
Ed Harris
Ed Harris played Gene Kranz, earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor; he lost to Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects.
Q 15What did President Nixon award the Apollo 13 crew when they reached Hawaii?
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
He then stopped in Houston to give the same honour to the Mission Operations Team, on the recommendation of NASA chief Thomas Paine.
Q 16What was Apollo 13's intended landing site on the Moon?
Fra Mauro
Fra Mauro, a hilly highland region named for its 95-km crater, was chosen because its ejecta blanket holds material excavated from deep within the Moon by the Imbrium impact.
Q 17How far from Earth was Apollo 13 at its farthest point?
About 400,000 km
Apollo 13 reached about 400,000 km (400,171 km) from Earth at its farthest, a crewed-spaceflight distance record, because the Moon was near apogee and the free-return path swung wide.
Q 18Which everyday chore did the command module pilot realise mid-flight he had forgotten to do?
File his income tax return
The command module pilot realised in flight that he had not filed his income tax return, due 15 April; Houston later confirmed he qualified for a 60-day extension as a citizen out of the country.
Q 19Lovell summed up Apollo 13 with which two-word phrase?
A successful failure
Lovell called Apollo 13 'a successful failure': the landing was lost, but the crew's safe return after the explosion showed the value of the recovery procedures and has been called NASA's finest hour.
Q 20What was Apollo 13's mission motto?
Ex luna, scientia
Ex luna, scientia means 'From the Moon, knowledge'; Lovell adapted it from his alma mater's motto, and the phrase is lettered across the bottom of the mission patch.
Fred Haise, the crew's lander pilot, developed a urinary tract infection from the meagre water ration and ran a fever on the way home; he was later slated to command the cancelled Apollo 19.
Q 24Which famous astronaut sat on the review board that investigated the Apollo 13 accident?
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong, nine months after his own Moon landing, sat on the Cortright Review Board chaired by Langley director Edgar Cortright, which delivered its report on 15 June, two months after the flight.
Q 25What was Apollo 13's spacecraft made to do with the Saturn V third stage, for the first time?
Crash it into the Moon
Apollo 13's spent S-IVB third stage was deliberately crashed into the Moon, the first such impact; Apollo 12's seismometer, left on the surface five months earlier, recorded it, prompting Lovell's quip that at least something worked on this flight.
Q 26With debris blocking star sightings, what did the crew use to align the spacecraft for the PC+2 burn?
The Sun
With debris making star sightings impossible, the crew confirmed their platform alignment by sighting the Sun, which proved accurate to within a degree, and the PC+2 burn went as planned.
Q 27Which manufacturer jokingly invoiced North American Rockwell over $312,000 for 'towing' Apollo 13 around the Moon?
Grumman
Grumman, builder of the lander that towed the crippled craft home, sent North American Rockwell a tongue-in-cheek $312,421.24 invoice: $1 a mile towing plus $4 for the first mile, and $8 a night for an 'additional guest in room'.
Q 28How long did Apollo 13's reentry communications blackout last?
Six minutes
The blackout ran about six minutes, roughly a minute and a half longer than predicted, because the shallow entry path stretched it out; controllers feared the heat shield had failed.
Q 29The Apollo 13 film was adapted from which 1994 book?
Lost Moon
Journalist Jeffrey Kluger co-wrote it with Lovell after Lovell retired in 1991; Kluger cameos in the film as a TV reporter.
Q 30How were the weightless scenes in Apollo 13 filmed?
Aboard NASA's KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft
The cast and crew flew aboard NASA's KC-135 reduced-gravity aircraft, the 'Vomit Comet', filming in 25-second bursts of weightlessness over 612 parabolas — about three hours 54 minutes in total; Steven Spielberg suggested it.