Apollo 13 was only part of Jim Lovell's incredible life
One of just 24 people to have flown to the moon, famed Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell was the first person to fly there twice, but never landed on its rocky surface.
Lovell, who died Aug. 7 at age 97, is best known for captaining the Apollo 13 mission safely back to earth after a devastating onboard explosion, saving his own life, his crew and perhaps America's space program.
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in an Aug. 8 statement that Lovell's "character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount."
But Lovell achieved far more than just rescuing one mission.
Who was Jim Lovell?
As part of the Gemini and Apollo programs, Lovell was the first astronaut to go to space four times. He was the Mission Commander for the nearly disastrous Apollo 13 mission to the moon.
According to his NASA biography, Lovell held the record for time in space with a total of 715 hours and 5 minutes ‒ just under a month ‒ until surpassed by the Skylab flights in 1973 and 1974, where scientists performed experiments while circling the planet for months.
Gemini
Lovell was a pilot on the record-breaking 14-day flight of Gemini 7 in 1965, which joined with Gemini 6 for the first successful space rendezvous.
In 1966, Lovell was command pilot for the flight of Gemini 12, the last mission of the Gemini series, which remained in orbit for four days.
Apollo 8
Lovell served as command module pilot for 1968's Apollo 8 mission, which was the first to bring humans to the moon and back without landing on the lunar surface.
On that mission, Lovell and his crew became the first people to leave Earth's gravitational influence, lift off on a Saturn V rocket and orbit the moon.
Apollo 13
In 1970, Lovell had a chance to go back to the moon as commander of the Apollo 13 mission, expected to be the country's third lunar landing.
The explosion of an oxygen tank forced Lovell and crewmates Fred Haise and Jack Swigert to abort the mission and put their efforts toward returning to Earth safely as the command module vented oxygen into space.
During the chaos he uttered the phrase now often misquoted as, "Houston, we have a problem."
According to NASA, what actually happened was that Swigert called Mission Control seconds after the explosion and said: 'Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here."
Capsule communicator (Capcom) astronaut Jack R. Lousma replied, 'This is Houston. Say again, please.'
Lovell said: 'Ah, Houston, we've had a problem here. We've had a Main B Bus Undervolt.'
Working closely with Houston ground controllers, the three men converted their lunar module "Aquarius" into a lifeboat and were able to activate and operate lunar module systems to safely return to Earth.
Smilin' Jim
Lovell was known for his turn of phrase, which earned him the nickname Smilin' Jim from his fellow astronauts because he was quick with a grin when he had a particularly funny comeback, Duffy said in his statement.
In a 2014 NPR interview, Lovell said his greatest impression from the Apollo 8 mission was not looking down at the moon but seeing the Earth.
"Just a small ball," he said, "Blue and white. Like a Christmas tree ball hung in an absolutely black sky. I could put my thumb up and completely hide the Earth. Everything I knew was behind my thumb."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
August's full moon reaches peak illumination this weekend. The best time to see it and the cloud forecast.
It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a … sturgeon? Sky-gazers will be able to enjoy August's spectacular full moon — known as a 'sturgeon moon' — at peak illumination this weekend. For those in North America, it will start Friday night and go into early Saturday, just days ahead of next week's highly anticipated 2025 Perseid meteor shower. Even if you're in a big city with lots of lights, viewers can still see the moon's brilliance overnight Friday into Saturday. An open field or elevated location with an unobstructed view facing the eastern horizon are the best spots for viewing the moon as it rises. Sky-gazers will be able to see the full moon with the naked eye, but binoculars or a telescope will allow them to see the details of the lunar surface. Here's when to see the sturgeon moon and the forecasted cloud cover in the U.S.: When exactly will it appear? The sturgeon moon will be visible starting Friday night, Aug. 8, into the early hours of Saturday morning on Aug. 9. The moon will be at its fullest at 3:55 a.m. ET on Saturday, as indicated by EarthSky. What will the cloud cover look like early Saturday? Cloud cover could also be a factor, depending on where you're planning to see the full moon. The map below shows the forecasted cloud cover at 2 a.m. ET on Aug. 9 from the National Weather Service. The areas shaded in gray are expected to have greater cloud cover. Why is it called a 'sturgeon moon,' anyway? Each of the full moons in the calendar year has a name. They are specific to the U.S., because their names come from "Native American, Colonial American and European sources," according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. August's full moon is named after the sturgeon because it's the peak time to catch the giant fish that's native to the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. Sturgeon was an important food staple for Native Americans who lived in that region, the Old Farmer's Almanac explains. The prehistoric-looking fish has been traced back to more than 100 million years ago and consists of 29 species worldwide. Sturgeon are known as a 'living fossil' because of how virtually unchanged they've remained for all this time. Their size can vary widely, from that of a bass to 'nearly as big as a Volkswagen,' according to the University of Michigan. What are the phases of the moon? The moon's cycle lasts for 29.5 days and goes through eight phases during that time: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent. Unlike some other full moons, the sturgeon moon is not considered a supermoon, which occurs when the moon is at its closest distance from Earth, nor a micromoon, designated as such when the moon is at its farthest distance away from Earth. How many more full moons will we see this year? After August, there will be four more full moons this year. There will be supermoons in October, November and December. Here's the list of remaining moons in 2025, according to the Farmers' Almanac: Sept. 7: Corn moon Oct. 6: Harvest moon Nov. 5: Beaver moon Dec. 4: Cold moon Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Jim Lovell, commander of NASA's Apollo 13 moon mission, dies at 97
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) -American astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival and the basis for the hit movie "Apollo 13," has died at the age of 97, NASA said on Friday. Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks played Lovell in director Ron Howard's acclaimed 1995 film. It recounted NASA's Apollo 13 mission, which was planned as humankind's third lunar landing but went horribly wrong when an onboard explosion on the way to the moon put the lives of the three astronauts in grave danger. Lovell and crew mates Jack Swigert and Fred Haise endured frigid, cramped conditions, dehydration and hunger for 3-1/2 days while concocting with Mission Control in Houston ingenious solutions to bring the crippled spacecraft safely back to Earth. "A 'successful failure' describes exactly what (Apollo) 13 was - because it was a failure in its initial mission - nothing had really been accomplished," Lovell told Reuters in 2010 in an interview marking the 40th anniversary of the flight. The outcome, the former Navy test pilot said, was "a great success in the ability of people to take an almost-certain catastrophe and turn it into a successful recovery." The Apollo 13 mission came nine months after Neil Armstrong had become the first person to walk on the moon when he took "one giant leap for mankind" during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969. There was drama even before Apollo 13's launch on April 11, 1970. Days earlier, the backup lunar module pilot inadvertently exposed the crew to German measles but Lovell and Haise were immune to it. Ken Mattingly, the command module pilot, had no immunity to measles and was replaced at the last minute by rookie astronaut Swigert. The mission generally went smoothly for its first two days. But moments after the crew finished a TV broadcast showing how they lived in space, an exposed wire in a command module oxygen tank sparked an explosion that badly damaged the spacecraft 200,000 miles (320,000 km) from Earth. The accident not only ruined their chances of landing on the moon but imperiled their lives. "Suddenly there's a 'hiss-bang. And the spacecraft rocks back and forth,'" Lovell said in a 1999 NASA oral history interview. "The lights come on and jets fire. And I looked at Haise to see if he knew what caused it. He had no idea. Looked at Jack Swigert. He had no idea. And then, of course, things started to happen." 'HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM' Swigert saw a warning light and told Mission Control: "Houston, we've had a problem here." In the movie, the line is instead attributed to Lovell and famously delivered by Hanks - slightly reworded - as: "Houston, we have a problem." With a dangerous loss of power, the three astronauts abandoned the command module and went to the lunar module - designed for two men to land on the moon. They used it as a lifeboat for a harrowing 3-1/2 day return to Earth. The astronauts and the U.S. space agency experts in Houston scrambled to figure out how to get the crew safely home with a limited amount of equipment at their disposal. Electrical systems were turned off to save energy, sending temperatures plummeting to near freezing. Water was drastically rationed, food was short and sleep was nearly impossible. The crew had to contrive a filter system to remove high levels of carbon dioxide that could have proven deadly. "The thought crossed our mind that we were in deep trouble. But we never dwelled on it," Lovell said in the NASA interview. "We never admitted to ourselves that, 'Hey, we're not going to make it.' Well, only one time - when Fred looked at ... the lunar module and found out we had about 45 hours worth of power and we were 90 hours from home." People worldwide were captivated by the events unfolding in space - and got a happy ending. The astronauts altered course to fly a single time around the moon and back to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Samoa on April 17, 1970. Lovell never got another chance to walk on the moon after Apollo 13, which was his fourth and final space trip. His first trip had been the Gemini 7 mission in 1965, featuring the first link-up of two manned spacecraft. His second was Gemini 12 in 1966, the last of the programs that led to the Apollo moon missions. Lovell's third mission was Apollo 8 in December 1968, the first to orbit the moon. During a telecast to Earth from their spacecraft on Christmas Eve, Lovell and crew mates Frank Borman and William Anders read verses from the Bible's Book of Genesis. Lovell, who later had a moon crater named in his honor, retired as an astronaut in 1973, working first for a harbor towing company and then in telecommunications. He co-authored a 1994 book, "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13," that became the basis for Howard's film. Lovell recalled a meeting with Howard in which the director asked the astronaut which actor he would want to play him. "I said, 'Kevin Costner,'" Lovell said. "And Hanks never lets me forget that... But Hanks did a great job." On Friday, Hanks praised Lovell and his accomplishments. "There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own," Hanks wrote on social media. Lovell, Hanks said, "was that kind of guy." "His many voyages around Earth and on to so-very-close to the moon were not made for riches or celebrity but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive," Hanks added. Lovell made a cameo appearance in "Apollo 13" as the commander of the U.S. Navy ship that retrieves the astronauts and shakes hands with Hanks. James Lovell was born in Cleveland on March 25, 1928. He was just 5 when his father died and his mother moved the family to Milwaukee. He became interested in space as a teenager. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1952 and became a test pilot before being selected as a NASA astronaut in 1962. He had four children with his wife, Marilyn. (Reporting and writing by Will Dunham; Additional reporting by Nilutpal Timsina and Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bill Trott and Rosalba O'Brien)
4 hours ago
Apollo 13 moon mission leader James Lovell dies at 97
CHICAGO -- James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97. Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA said in a statement on Friday. 'Jim's character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount,' NASA said. "We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements.' One of NASA's most traveled astronauts in the agency's first decade, Lovell flew four times — Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — with the two Apollo flights riveting the folks back on Earth. Lovell and fellow astronauts Fred Haise and Jack Swigert received renewed fame with the retelling of the Apollo 13 mission in the 1995 movie 'Apollo 13" where actor Tom Hanks — portraying Lovell — famously said, 'Houston, we have a problem.' In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders was the first to leave Earth's orbit and the first to fly to and circle the moon. They could not land, but they put the U.S. ahead of the Soviets in the space race. Letter writers told the crew that their stunning pale blue dot photo of Earth from the moon, a world first, and the crew's Christmas Eve reading from Genesis saved America from a tumultuous 1968. But the big rescue mission was still to come. That was during the harrowing Apollo 13 flight in 1970. Lovell was supposed to be the fifth man to walk on the moon. But Apollo 13's service module, carrying Lovell and two others, experienced a sudden oxygen tank explosion on its way to the moon. The astronauts barely survived, spending four cold and clammy days in the cramped lunar module as a lifeboat. ''The thing that I want most people to remember is (that) in some sense it was very much of a success,'' Lovell said during a 1994 interview. ''Not that we accomplished anything, but a success in that we demonstrated the capability of (NASA) personnel.'' A retired Navy captain known for his calm demeanor, Lovell told a NASA historian that his brush with death affected him. 'I don't worry about crises any longer,' he said in 1999. Whenever he has a problem, 'I say, 'I could have been gone back in 1970. I'm still here. I'm still breathing.' So, I don't worry about crises.' Lovell had ice water in his veins like other astronauts, but he didn't display the swagger some had, just quiet confidence, said Smithsonian Institution historian Roger Launius. He called Lovell 'a very personable, very down-to-earth type of person, who says 'This is what I do. Yes, there's risk involved. I measure risk.'' In all, Lovell flew four space missions — and until the Skylab flights of the mid-1970s, he held the world record for the longest time in space with 715 hours, 4 minutes and 57 seconds. 'He was a member of really the first generation of American astronauts and went on to inspire multiple generations of Americans to look at the stars and want to explore,' said Bruce McClintock, who leads the RAND Corp. Space Enterprise Initiative. Aboard Apollo 8, Lovell described the oceans and land masses of Earth. "What I keep imagining, is if I am some lonely traveler from another planet, what I would think about the Earth at this altitude, whether I think it would be inhabited or not," he remarked. That mission may be as important as the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, a flight made possible by Apollo 8, Launius said. "I think in the history of space flight, I would say that Jim was one of the pillars of the early space flight program," Gene Kranz, NASA's legendary flight director, once said. But if historians consider Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 the most significant of the Apollo missions, it was during Lovell's last mission that he came to embody for the public the image of the cool, decisive astronaut. The Apollo 13 crew of Lovell, Haise and Swigert was on the way to the moon in April 1970, when an oxygen tank from the spaceship exploded 200,000 miles from Earth. That, Lovell recalled, was 'the most frightening moment in this whole thing.' Then oxygen began escaping and 'we didn't have solutions to get home.' 'We knew we were in deep, deep trouble,' he told NASA's historian. Four-fifths of the way to the moon, NASA scrapped the mission. Suddenly, their only goal was to survive. Lovell's "Houston, we've had a problem," a variation of a comment Swigert had radioed moments before, became famous. What unfolded over the next four days captured the imagination of the world. With Lovell commanding the spacecraft, Kranz led hundreds of flight controllers and engineers in a furious rescue plan. The plan involved the astronauts moving from the service module, which was hemorrhaging oxygen, into the cramped, dark and frigid lunar lander while they rationed their dwindling oxygen, water and electricity. Using the lunar module as a lifeboat, they swung around the moon, aimed for Earth and raced home. 'There is never a guarantee of success when it comes to space,' McClintock said. Lovell showed a 'leadership role and heroic efforts in the recovery of Apollo 13.' By coolly solving the problems under the most intense pressure imaginable, the astronauts and the crew on the ground became heroes. In the process of turning what seemed routine into a life-and-death struggle, the entire flight team had created one of NASA's finest moments. "They demonstrated to the world they could handle truly horrific problems and bring them back alive," said Launius. The loss of the opportunity to walk on the moon "is my one regret," Lovell said in a 1995 interview with The Associated Press. President Bill Clinton agreed when he awarded Lovell the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1995. "While you may have lost the moon ... you gained something that is far more important perhaps: the abiding respect and gratitude of the American people," he said. Lovell once said that while he was disappointed he never walked on the moon, "The mission itself and the fact that we triumphed over certain catastrophe does give me a deep sense of satisfaction." And Lovell clearly understood why this failed mission afforded him far more fame than had Apollo 13 accomplished its goal. "Going to the moon, if everything works right, it's like following a cookbook. It's not that big a deal," he told the AP in 2004. "If something goes wrong, that's what separates the men from the boys." James A. Lovell was born March 25, 1928, in Cleveland. He attended the University of Wisconsin before transferring to the U.S. Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland. On the day he graduated in 1952, he and his wife, Marilyn, were married. A test pilot at the Navy Test Center in Patuxent River, Maryland, Lovell was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1962. Lovell retired from the Navy and from the space program in 1973, and went into private business. In 1994, he and Jeff Kluger wrote "Lost Moon," the story of the Apollo 13 mission and the basis for the film "Apollo 13." In one of the final scenes, Lovell appeared as a Navy captain, the rank he actually had. He and his family ran a now-closed restaurant in suburban Chicago, Lovell's of Lake Forest. His wife, Marilynn, died in 2023. Survivors include four children. In a statement, his family hailed him as their 'hero.' 'We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible,' his family said. 'He was truly one of a kind.'
