August 3, 1995 -- The long-awaited ``Apollo 13'' has finally landed in Laramie. ``Apollo 13'' is an excellent film. It is suspenseful even though the ending to the true story is well-known.

Director Ron Howard's film builds slowly to the countdown and the tension really kicks in when an oxygen tank explodes aboard the spacecraft, putting the crew in danger.

We get to know the characters well. by the film's climax, I saw people in the audience actually chewing their knuckles. Even though the story is science fact, it plays like science fiction. Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Gary Sinese play the crew-cut rocket jocks to perfection, while Ed Harris is in charge of the nerds at Mission Control who are the real heroes of this tale. Quick thinking, quick calculations and teamwork saved the day. It is America at its best.

There are familiar echoes of ``Star Trek'' as we get lines like ``You've got 15 minutes to come up with a solution.'' It sounded a lot like Captain Kirk yelling at Scotty.

It seems strange now, a quarter of a century later, than mankind, with vastly superior technology, lacks the will to venture to the other planets or even to go back to the moon. What a world of wimps we have become!

Apollo 13 rates an A.

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