Mission Control in Houston celebrates the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew. Mission Director Chester Lee (right) shakes hands with Deke Slayton (left), director of flight crew operations, while flight director Gene Kranz smokes a celebratory cigar.
“Hey, we’ve got a problem here.”
With these words, Command Module Pilot Jack Swigart calmly gave the first indication of serious trouble for the crew of the Apollo 13 mission.
(The 1995 movie Apollo 13 took some creative license with the phrase, changing it to “Houston, we have a problem" and having the words come out of Apollo 13 commander James Lovell's mouth.)
Among those on the receiving end of this fateful message was mission director Chester Maurice Lee, a Latrobe native and member of the Latrobe High School Class of 1936.
Note: Information for his article was compiled from the many articles and books donated by Chester Lee’s daughter and also from a scrapbook of articles collected by his sister, Mary Lee.
Download the full story of the article from the Spring 2017 Gazette here
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