Houston, we have a problem


"Houston, we have a problem" is a popular but erroneous quotation from the radio communications between the Apollo 13 astronaut John Swigert and the NASA Mission Control Center during the Apollo 13 spaceflight, as the astronauts communicated their discovery of the explosion that crippled their spacecraft.
The words actually spoken, initially by Jack Swigert, were "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here". After being prompted to repeat the transmission by CAPCOM Jack R. Lousma, Jim Lovell responded, "Uh, Houston, we've had a problem."
Since then, the erroneous phrase "Houston, we have a problem" has become popular, being used to account, informally, the emergence of an unforeseen problem.

The message

The official NASA "Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription" has the following dialogue listed:
02 07 55 20 Lovell: I believe we've had a problem here.
02 07 55 28 Lousma: This is Houston. Say again, please.
02 07 55 35 Lovell: Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.
As a correction to the printed text, the transcription includes a handwritten note in the margin that states, "Swigert reported trouble," and attributes the first transmission about a problem to Swigert and the second to Lovell. The report at 02 07 55 20 is also mistranscribed. Swigert's actual words, according to the audio, were "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here."
With corrections applied, the actual dialogue spoken was the following:
02 07 55 20 Swigert: Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.
02 07 55 28 Lousma: This is Houston. Say again, please.
02 07 55 35 Lovell: Uh, Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.
The corrected transcription above is also supported by Jim Lovell's own recollections that he provided in Chapter 13 of Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, where he writes, "Jack Swigert saw a warning light that accompanied the bang, and said, "Houston, we've had a problem here." I came on and told the ground that it was a main B bus undervolt. The time was 21:08 hours on April 13."

In media

In the motion picture of 1995, Apollo 13, the actual quote was shortened to "Houston, we have a problem" because some of the actual words spoken were unnecessary.
Movie viewers knew what had happened, while Mission Control did not at the time. Screenwriter William Broyles Jr. made the change, stating that the verb tense actually used "wasn't as dramatic". Broyles and American University linguist Naomi S. Baron said the actual line spoken would not work well in a suspense movie. The movie quote ranked #50 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes in June 2005.