There's legends galore in the pulp SF lore
'Bout shipwrecks of spacecraft a-spacing
When meteor holes come 'tween men and their goals
By demolishing ships that they're racing
Painting pictures with words like none you'd ever heard
SF writers made frightening predictions
But the terrors they tell cannot equal the hell
Faced by three men in fact, and nonfiction
To April 11, Nine-teen Seventy now
We must let our narrative carry us
Three men in a C.S.M named Odyssey
Beneath them, the L.M named Aquarius
With a furious roar, Saturn leapt for the sky
With Jack Swiggart, Fred Heise, and Jim Lovell
Toward a planned rendervous that would never come true
With the grey lunar gravel and rubble
Still, they set up housekeeping in orbit, 'round Earth
And translunar insertion was kindled
But the public just yawned, for this landing was theird
And behind them old Terra slow dwindled
Apollo XIII traveled on down the track Laid down by the three laws Of Newton
At fifty-s** hours into lunar bound coast
Lovell said, "Houston, we have a problem"
Now, they might have been struck by a meteorite
Maybe something had just overloaded
But their pannels went red with their malfunction lights
And in Odyessy something exploded
That blast blocked or ruptured their fuel cell line
Their electrical energy faltered
With no hope at all of a rescue in time
Thirteen's mission profile had just altred
To physics and God they commended their lives
For no power on Earth now could save them
Although NASA let the men talk with their wives
Of goodbyes there was never a mention
Three men in a CSM bound for the Moon
Reached two hundread and six thousand miles
Did they have enough air to get all the way there?
Could they trust what they read on their dials?
And when they reached Luna, could they change course for home
Would she Trap them, or loose them at random
Untested advice and contingency plans
Were the only things NASA could hand them
WHen appollo 13 crossed the limb of the moon
And d**h came from the recivers
We knew the next signal would speak of their doom
Or answer the faith of belivers
"Apollo Thirteen, This is Houston, Do you read?"
Dear god let them answer us quickly
The world held its breath and in mission control
Every screen lit a face pale and sickly
"Apollo Thirteen, this is houston. Do you read?" . .
That empty sound streteched on for years
"Houston. . .This is Thriteen. . . We're coming home!" said a voice
And the world found relief in its tears
At T plus one hundread and theirty-eight hours
They jettosoned Odyssey's wreckage
That modual was shattered and blasted apart
A symbol of d**h in the space age
Aquarius served as their lifeboat to shore
Till they knew they would no longer need her
At T pluss one hundred and fourty-one hours
With a deep prayer of "Thank You" they freed her
Ed, Roger, and Gus must have smiled on those days
Knowing theirs was the path not to follow
But their souls were with Swiggart and Lovli and Heise
Riding home on the thrirtheenth apollo
At T plus one hundread forty-three Fifty-four
Apollo XIII hit the waters
Three men returned home, shaken up, but alive
To their wives and their sons and their daughters!
There's legends galore in the pulp SF lore
Bout shipwrecks of spacecraft a-spacing
But all of them now do cause men to reflect
On three days when the world's heart went racing
Painting pictures with words all to few people heard
SF writers could make their predictions
But always recall that in spite of them all
He truth was much greater than fiction
Yes always recall that, that in spite of them all
The truth must be greater than fiction