Crewmen aboard the
USS Iwo Jima, prime recovery ship for the
Apollo 13 mission, hoist the
command module aboard ship on April 17, 1970, after the spacecraft
splashed down in the South Pacific. The crew successfully returned to Earth after a critical malfunction en route to the
Moon and the mission eventually became known as a "successful failure". Commander
Jim Lovell's radio transmission, "Houston, we've had a problem", spawned the misquoted phrase in popular culture, "Houston, we have a problem".
Photo credit: NASA