On the evening of April 13, 1970, about 56 hours into the flight of Apollo 13, command module pilot Jack Swigert reported: “Okay, Houston … we’ve had a problem here.” When asked to repeat, commander Jim Lovell said: “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Then he named it: “We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt.”
The phrase Americans know is “Houston, we have a problem.” The Houston Chronicle traced it to Ron Howard’s 1995 film Apollo 13, though a 1974 TV movie had already used a changed version. In 2005 the American Film Institute ranked the film line No. 50 among the 100 greatest movie quotes.