R S V P / ORANGE COUNTY : Hollywood Stars Meet the Real Starmen : At a tribute to the NASA personnel who averted disaster in the Apollo 13 mission, director Ron Howard discusses the reel-life drama of his upcoming movie version.

Twenty-five years to the day that Apollo 13 was nearly lost on a voyage to the moon, the mission’s commander and ground controllers gathered to mark the anniversary of the harrowing flight.

Ron Howard, director of “Apollo 13,” an upcoming movie about the mission, was one of 200 guests who attended a champagne reception at Planet Hollywood in Santa Ana and dinner at the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Center in Costa Mesa on Thursday. The $300-per-person gala, called “Apollo 13: A Tribute to Courage,” was expected to net more than $40,000 for the National Space Society and the Spaceweek International Assn., which generates awareness and support of America’s space program.

Lost in Space

James Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, shared his memories of the unlucky flight, which would have been the third mission to land on the moon. Lovell’s crew mate Jack Swigert died of cancer in the 1980s, and astronaut Fred Haise could not attend.

Lovell’s understated announcement, “Houston, we have problems,” first indicated the mission was in trouble. Oxygen tank 2 was dead, and oxygen tank 1, which was keeping the crew alive, was malfunctioning.

“The explosion, the concern about the situation, (the question of) how we were going to get home--all these things went through your mind,” Lovell recalled. “We were thinking, ‘Can we get through this crisis?’ ”

Apollo 13 almost didn’t make it back--the crew was 205,000 miles from Earth when the tank exploded, and flight controllers had to guide the craft around the moon and back home to safety. For a few tense days, the world watched to see whether the crew would come home alive.

Gene Kranz, the lead flight director who helped guide Apollo 13 home, said he still thinks about how close they came to losing the spacecraft.

“I still get sweaty palms,” Kranz says.

Lovell will be portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie, to be released June 30. Although Hanks could not attend the gala, he sent a videotaped message that was shown to guests after dinner at the Mondavi center.

Hanks waxed eloquent about his relationship with Lovell and the time he spent with the former astronaut studying his character.

“He made me feel I was already a part of Apollo 13,” he said.

The actor soon discovered that Lovell liked speed. He took Hanks on a nighttime flight aboard his Baron, letting the actor take the airplane’s controls and teaching him to navigate by two stars.

“I’m not a pilot. I’m not an astronaut. I only play one in the movies,” Hanks joked, saying he never did locate one of the stars.

High-Tension Drama

Although Howard was interested in the space missions, he said he wasn’t the Apollo “fanatic” Hanks was as a kid. Howard did say, however, that he “wanted to be the first director to shoot a movie on the moon.”

Howard told guests that many of his show-business friends are curious about the real-life Apollo crew and flight controllers.

“They keep asking, ‘What are they like?’ ” he said. “These are the same people who roll their eyes when people ask, ‘Did Aunt Bee really bake all those pies?’ ” The answer to that question, from the man who played Opie: “Not a one.”

The story of Apollo 13 is so dramatic, Howard said it needed no embellishment.

“As a filmmaker, first you have to really learn the story in detail. The more I learned about Apollo 13, the more I learned we didn’t have to make up anything. It’s a great story.” His mission? “To really let audiences feel what it was like to be in that tin can.”

Among those attending were: emcee Jim Hartz, former NBC news correspondent who covered the Apollo missions; event chairmen Frank Braun and Jerry Simmons; Dennis Stone, president of the Spaceweek International Assn.; Susan Davis, Spaceweek International coordinator; Lori Garver, executive director of the National Space Society; Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut; Glynn Lunney, an Apollo 13 flight director; actress Kathleen Quinlan, “Apollo 13” cast member; Jeffrey Kluger, co-author of “Lost Moon,” which he wrote with Lovell about the Apollo 13 mission; Jerry Bostick, flight dynamics officer; Michael Bostick, associate producer of “Apollo 13”; Harrison Schmitt, astronaut, Apollo 17; Bob Minor, president of Rockwell International, and Bill Olsen, president of McDonnell Douglas.