Nobody said this in space. The real call, at 055:55:19 mission elapsed time on 13 April 1970, came from command module pilot Jack Swigert — “Okay, Houston… we’ve had a problem here” — and Lovell repeated it sixteen seconds later as “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt.” The present-tense “we have a problem” is dialogue written for Ron Howard’s 1995 film Apollo 13 ↗, where Tom Hanks says it as Lovell.
“Houston, we have a problem” Jack Swigert, Apollo 13, 13 April 1970, repeated moments later by commander Jim Lovell as "Ah, Houston, we've had a problem." The familiar "Houston, we have a problem" is dialogue from the 1995 film Apollo 13, not a real transmission.
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In context
Evoking the world of Jim Lovell — NASA astronaut; commander of Apollo 13. Theme: "Houston, we have a problem". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Houston, we have a problem". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
What was actually transmitted
Real transmission
Apollo 13 air-to-ground, 13 April 1970, 055:55:19 GET
Primary record
Apollo 13 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription
Spoken by
Jack Swigert first; repeated by Jim Lovell
Famous wording
Apollo 13 (1995), screenplay by William Broyles Jr. & Al Reinert
055:55:19 Swigert: “Okay, Houston…” 055:55:19 Lovell: “…Houston…” 055:55:20 Swigert: “…we’ve had a problem here.” 055:55:28 Lousma: “This is Houston. Say again, please.” 055:55:35 Lovell: “[Garble.] Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt.”
From the Apollo 13 Flight Journal, Day 3
Timestamps are Ground Elapsed Time. Note that Swigert speaks first, and that both men use the past perfect — “we’ve had”. The oxygen tank had exploded roughly fifteen seconds earlier.
13 April 1970 — the real words. NASA’s transcript and the Apollo 13 Flight Journal ↗ record Swigert at 055:55:19 — “Okay, Houston… we’ve had a problem here” — and Lovell at 055:55:35 — “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt.” NASA’s own history page ↗ uses the past tense throughout.
1974 — the first mangling. ABC’s TV drama Houston, We’ve Got a Problem put a third variant into circulation. Wikipedia ↗ calls the title “a misquotation”; Lovell wrote to TV Guide that he resented “the mixing of fact and fiction”.
30 June 1995 — the version that stuck. Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 ↗, adapted from Lovell and Kluger’s Lost Moon, moved the line into the present tense for Tom Hanks. Wikiquote ↗ lists it as film dialogue and notes the real wording differed.
2005 — canonised as fiction. The line reached No. 50 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movie Quotes, and the Houston Chronicle later named the film as the source of the misquotation — both per Wikipedia’s survey ↗.
The rights here split cleanly along the line between what was said and what people quote. The actual transmission survives in the Apollo 13 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription ↗ (NASA, April 1970), which NASA’s Technical Reports Server records as a public-use work of the U.S. Government — so “Houston, we’ve had a problem” carries no copyright encumbrance. The famous wording, however, is not from that transcript at all: it is a line of dialogue written for the 1995 film Apollo 13, a 1995 work and therefore in copyright, which is why this page classifies it conservatively as in-copyright rather than public-domain.
Fact-check
Three things are wrong with the famous version
This is an unusually layered misquote: the tense is wrong, the speaker is wrong, and even the wrongness has an earlier, wronger ancestor. Lovell genuinely said a version of the line — which is why the misattribution has stuck so well.
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The wordingScreenwriter William Broyles Jr. (Apollo 13, 1995) Rewrite
The present tense was a deliberate script change. Broyles said the real past-perfect line “is saying something has happened, and it’s over. The past perfect tense wasn’t as dramatic as ‘We have a problem’” — as documented here ↗, citing a 2017 Washington Post piece. The Houston Chronicle has identified Ron Howard’s film as the source of the popular misquotation.
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The speakerJack Swigert, who called it in first Wrong man
At 055:55:19 it was command module pilot Jack Swigert — not Lovell — who transmitted “Okay, Houston… we’ve had a problem here.” Lovell only spoke after CAPCOM Jack Lousma asked the crew to say again. Swigert’s Wikipedia entry ↗ states he “was the astronaut who first announced” the line, and that it was “then repeated by commander of the flight Jim Lovell”.
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The earlier driftThe 1974 ABC TV movie Houston, We’ve Got a Problem Third variant
The line was already being mangled two decades before Tom Hanks — differently. This ABC drama’s title used “we’ve got a problem”, and Wikipedia notes ↗ the title is “a misquotation” of Lovell’s announcement. Lovell wrote to TV Guide calling the film “fictitious and in poor taste” and adding: “I resent the mixing of fact and fiction.”
✓What actually crossed 205,000 miles of space on 13 April 1970 was: “Okay, Houston… we’ve had a problem here” (Swigert), then “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt” (Lovell) — both in the past perfect, both preserved verbatim in NASA’s flight journal ↗.
Context
Why the movie changed it
The accident happened 55 hours, 55 minutes and 4 seconds into the flight, on 13 April 1970, with Apollo 13 some 205,000 miles from Earth. An oxygen tank in the service module exploded. What the crew actually transmitted was not a cry of alarm but a piece of clipped engineering shorthand: something had happened, and here was the symptom — a Main B Bus Undervolt. The past-perfect tense was accurate. It was also, dramatically speaking, inert.
Screenwriter William Broyles Jr. rewrote it deliberately. As Wikipedia documents ↗, citing a 2017 Washington Post account, Broyles said the real line “is saying something has happened, and it’s over. The past perfect tense wasn’t as dramatic as ‘We have a problem’ — which meant that the problem was happening right then and was continuing, which in fact it was and would shortly cause the mission to abort.” He was right about the drama. The line ranked No. 50 on AFI’s 100 Greatest Movie Quotes in June 2005 — as a movie quote, which is exactly what it is.
The tense was the whole point. “We’ve had” is a report. “We have” is a crisis.
The man who actually said it
Jack Swigert (1931–1982) was not supposed to be on Apollo 13 at all. He was moved onto the prime crew as command module pilot just three days before launch, after the crew’s exposure to rubella and Ken Mattingly’s lack of immunity to it. Three days into the flight he became the first human being to report the accident — and, as his Wikipedia entry notes ↗, “Swigert was the astronaut who first announced, ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem here’”, with the statement then repeated by Lovell.
Swigert died of cancer in December 1982, aged 51, having just been elected to Congress — thirteen years before the film handed his line to someone else.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1928–2025 · NASA astronaut; commander of Apollo 13
James A. Lovell Jr. flew four space missions — Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — making him the first person to fly to space four times, and one of the few to reach the Moon twice without ever landing on it. As commander of Apollo 13 in April 1970 he brought a crippled spacecraft and its crew home after an oxygen tank exploded 205,000 miles from Earth. He co-wrote the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 with Jeffrey Kluger, which became the basis for the 1995 film that put five slightly wrong words in his mouth forever. He died on 7 August 2025, aged 97.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Apollo 13 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription (NASA, April 1, 1970), 055:55:19–055:55:35 GET; NASA Technical Reports Server, document 20160014370. The popular wording originates in Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard, screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert (Imagine Entertainment / Universal Pictures, 1995).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Houston, we have a problem’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/houston-we-have-a-problem