The tragic death of Apollo's first three astronauts during a pre-launch test haunts the spacecraft's designers, as they struggle to come to terms with what happened, and find a way to save the moon program.

NASA takes its boldest and most controversial step—an attempt to fly men around the moon and back for the first time in history—at the end of one of the most cataclysmic years of the century.

As the life-threatening consequences of the Apollo 13 accident escalate in real time, so do the tensions among the NASA press corps covering it. Among them, a respected, old-school TV journalist questions the confrontational methods of a younger, slicker colleague.