Could have sworn there was a board for this....

During the scene in Mission Control, when they're waiting for Odyssey to come out of re-entry blackout, you can see some mission logos on the wall behind Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise). There is a very noticeable red "X" (assume for Apollo X). The nit is that some of the other logos look like Space Shuttle mission logos!

Somewhere in my collection of stuff, I've got a book that shows the various NASA mission patches.
Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Apollo 13 to check up on that nit! (I'll be doing so if I ever get a copy... and, of course, if I can find that book...)

Saw it again tonight. In that scene, you can see a triangular mission logo. There's a shuttle on it.

I'd read that the set designers took great care to make the control room look like it did around 1970, adding little cartons for pencils, ashtrays for cigarettes (since smoking wasn't forbidden back then) and so forth. Seems kind of odd they'd have messed that mission patch detail up... do you think perhaps it was an inside joke/message/homage? (BTW, any idea which shuttle mission the patch was from?)
On the other hand, I can't find the book I mentioned, but I found another that has most of the Apollo patches and some Mercury & Gemini ones. One of the Mercury patches (Mercury 4, Grissom's Liberty Bell 7) is trapezoidal in shape and has a roughly triangular depiction of the capsule on it... could the patch you've seen be a Mercury one? Again, I haven't seen the film, and don't have a copy for reference.
I'm going to see if I can find a website with mission patches. I swear I've seen one somewhere on the internet... be back soon!

Ah, I'm at a loss, and don't have anymore time today to look. Sorry!

Again, I haven't seen the film... --Me, yesterday.

I meant "I haven't seen the film in a long time."

••••, that's a nice big collar on the blouse
that the girl is wearing just before they leave
for the tv presentation on what goes on in the
spaceship. Where can i get such a blouse?

You can purchase such a blouse at Sears, J.C. Penney's, or Montgomery Wards department stores from 1968 to 1973.

Parts of this were filmed at my daughters' pre-school (Temple Ahavat Shalom, Northridge, CA). Unfortunately I can't tell you which ones.

Could it be that if it is a Space Shuttle mission logo, that it is one flown by Ken Mattingly? Unlike the other Apollo 13 astronauts, Mattingly flew the shuttle. It could have been stuck in there, though anachronistically, as a tribute for Mattingly's future.

Anyone saw Boomer of Battlestar Galactica at the end of the movie?
He got listed in the end credits!

Apollo 13 is playing on HBO now through Nov. 17, 2009. It wil be available on HBO On-Demand from Oct. 19 through Nov. 16. For those (like myself) who have yet to see this flick.

You've never seen it? I'd recommend checking it out.

Definitely. Ed Harris is awesome.

Finally did get to see it. Good film, made more so because I remember the real incident. I was pretty scared at the time that the three astronauts wouldn't make it home alive.
One nit that pops up in films set in the late 60's and early 70's is seeing modular phones used; this film is guilty in that respect. (We see modular phones in Swigert's house, as well in the Lovell's home.) Modular phones weren't introduced until 1976.
I was waiting for, and didn't get, a crack about "the spacecraft components being built by the lowest bidder" like Steve Buscemi's Rockhound said in Armageddon.

[i]I was waiting for, and didn't get, a crack about "the spacecraft components being built by the lowest bidder" like Steve Buscemi's Rockhound said in Armageddon.[/i]

We did however have a major plot point about the atmospheric scrubbers in the LEM not being able to take cartages/filters from the command module: "tell me this isn't a government operation" spoken by Gene Kranz. The real reason for that issue was the fact that the Grumman built the LEM & North American Aviation built the Command module.

IMHO Ron Howard was ripped off by the Oscar Committee

I was waiting for, and didn't get, a crack about "the spacecraft components being built by the lowest bidder" like Steve Buscemi's Rockhound said in Armageddon.

They did include that crack in the documentary covering the entire US moon program, From the Earth to the Moon. It was made by the same people as Apollo 13 and has just about the same feel, but with a vastly expanded view. Great stuff.

The scene where Lovell tells his wife they aren't going on vacation, because he's going to the moon did happen.

However, as reported by Andrew Chaikin in A Man On the Moon", it happend when NASA decided to send Apollo 8 circumlunar, not for Apollo 13.

After Loss of Signal, when Apollo 13 goes behind the moon, the crew are looking at the Fra Mauro landing site. However, Fra Mauro is pretty much near the center of the visible portion of the moon.

Since they had LOS, they were behind the moon, and should not have been able to see it (AFAICT).

You are correct. In fact, the site would have been out of view long before Loss of Signal.

The Budweiser beer cans that Mattingly (Gary Sinese) is seen drinking are more 1995 than 1970. The cans seen are aluminum, with indentations at the top and bottom. Cans of the early seventies were steel, and flat from top to bottom.

When they jettison the LM just before re-entry, the CM still has the docking probe attached. In real life, the entire docking ring, including the probe, was discarded with the LM.

Houston, we have a problem!