It had been less than a year since the first man walked on the Moon, but to the American public, Apollo 13 was just another "routine" space flight. That is until the words pierced the immense void of space: "Houston, we have a problem." Stranded in a crippled spacecraft 205,000 miles from Earth, astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert fight a desperate battle to survive. Meanwhile, at Mission Control, astronaut Ken Mattingly, flight director Gene Kranz and the efforts of a heroic ground crew race against time - and the odds - to bring the men home.