to mission control

INT. MANNED SPACECRAFT CENTER - COMMAND MODULE SIMULATOR

TITLE:MANNED
SPACECRAFT CENTER -HOUSTON, TEXAS - 3 MONTHS PRIOR TO LAUNCH

TECHNICIAN- Apollo 13, you are go for pyro arm and docking. All systems are
nominal and on the line.

JIM, KEN and FRED are in the CM simulator working on theLM docking
procedures.

FRED HAISE- Okay. S-IVB is stable. SLA panels are drifting
free. The drogue is clear. The docking target is clear.

KEN MATTINGLY- Okay, I'm coming up on that now. Two, one, mark.

FRED HAISE- Seventy-five feet. We're coming up on docking.

Out at the sim console technicians are providing some problems for the crew
to work.

TECHNICIAN- Let's shut down some thruster on 'em.

TECHNICIAN 2- Let's see what he does with this one.

Back inside the CM simulator KEN notices something is wrong.

KEN MATTINGLY- Whoa. Wait a minute. I lost something here. I can't
translate up.

FRED HAISE- Houston. We are drifting down and away.

TECHNICIAN- Roger that.

JIM LOVELL- Wanna just back off and make another run at this.

KEN MATTINGLY- No. I got it. I got it. Let me... I'm just trying to get it
stable here.

FRED HAISE- Houston. I'm gonna reset the high gain.
KEN MATTINGLY- I've got the target back in the reticle. Okay. We're stable.
Go ahead and recycle the valves.

FRED HAISE- Forty feet...

JIM LOVELL- They're all gray.

FRED HAISE- ... Twenty...

KEN MATTINGLY- Easy.

FRED HAISE- Ten feet...

KEN MATTINGLY- Captured.

Ever feel this way with your life? Just trying to dock the ship on target. You can't see outside this tiny pinhole of a lens and any slight change in the environment acts as a hairtrigger on the controls sending you off target?

This is how I feel about my life right now. So many millions of things are going right, well and good, yet I feel that I'm "drifting down and away and am unable to translate up."

Know what I'm saying?

My truest heart's desire is to capture the target my Creator has set for me.

My truest heart's desire is to be captured by the target my Creator has set for me.

Houston, I have a problem.