The Ballad of Apollo XIII

On April 11, 1970, 53 years ago today, NASA's Apollo 13 lifted off on a mission to the moon. The general public wasn't quite as engaged for this mission, since they had seen men walking on the surface of the moon twice already. That changed when the spaceship suffered an explosion. The entire world sat on the edge of our seats until the crew made it home safely.

The song "The Ballad of Apollo XIII" is sung by Julia Ecklar to the tune of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Ecklar wrote the lyrics for the album Minus Ten and Counting: Songs of the Space Age. The video is a compilation of clips from the 1995 film Apollo 13, which was adapted from the excellent book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by astronaut Jim Lovell. There are also some NASA clips from 1970.