But to the precise point, I feel like the argument portrayed in the feature film was especially unkind. Jack Swigert literally wrote the book on the CSM emergency procedures. He knew more about how to fly a crippled CSM than any other Apollo astronaut. I think the Apollo 13 crew were damned lucky he was there, and to have the fictitious argument be one that impugned Swigert's competence was unfair.
I completely agree. Sadly it's pretty common for adaptations of real events to change the character (or just emphasise certain aspects) of a person who is no longer alive. Complaints were made after Titanic was released, for example, for its portrayal of some of the ship's crew. But yes, the notion that Swigert was an unknown quantity, that everyone was worried about his ability to fly the mission as a last minute substitute, that Haise would even have suggested the accident might have somehow been his fault, or that the CSM would disparage the other spacecraft as a 'piece of shit' is a horrible misrepresentation of the man and the programme. It is literally the point of a backup crew that they are as well-trained and competent as the prime crew for the planned mission. OK, they make the point that it changes the crew dynamic after months of training together, but these guys are professionals and can work through that. A successful mission is not dependent on that if everyone has learned the procedures in parallel.
As you say, Jay, if there was one astronaut you would have wanted on the CSM in an emergency, Swigert was the man!
I have seen Lovell say there was an argument but they will never say what it was about. I think that's a very media-savvy response, because it allows them to see that these were just humans in a tense situation and there was at least one moment that wasn't just them doing their jobs smoothly and professionally, but gives no details to pick over, as we all know the press would have done. From what I have gathered of the men involved (I'm privileged to have briefly met both Lovell and Haise at a signing event, as well as seeing them in press conferences and interviews and reading many MANY books on the programme in general), I think it's more than likely the one argument was a tension-snap triggered by something entirely trivial like who left a food packet floating around the cabin, but that's just speculation on my part. I can't for a second imagine it in any way involving placing blame, criticising the spacecraft or suggesting mission control are keeping them in the dark about some dangerous situation as the movie suggests.
