Apollo 13 moon mission chief James Lovell dies at 97

James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped flip a failed moon mission right into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died. He was 97.

Lovell died pn Thursday (August 7, 2025) in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA stated in an announcement on Friday.

“Jim’s character and steadfast braveness helped our nation attain the Moon and turned a possible tragedy into successful from which we discovered an unlimited quantity,” NASA stated. “We mourn his passing at the same time as we rejoice his achievements.” One in every of NASA’s most travelled astronauts within the company’s first decade, Lovell flew 4 occasions – Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 – with the 2 Apollo flights riveting the oldsters again on Earth.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders was the primary to depart Earth’s orbit and the primary to fly to and circle the moon. They might not land, however they put the US forward of the Soviets within the area race.

Letter writers advised the crew that their gorgeous pale blue dot picture of Earth from the moon, a world first, and the crew’s Christmas Eve studying from Genesis saved America from a tumultuous 1968.

However the large rescue mission was nonetheless to return. That was throughout the harrowing Apollo 13 flight in April 1970. Lovell was purported to be the fifth man to stroll on the moon. However Apollo 13’s service module, carrying Lovell and two others, skilled a sudden oxygen tank explosion on its strategy to the moon. The astronauts barely survived, spending 4 chilly and clammy days within the cramped lunar module as a lifeboat.

“The factor that I would like most individuals to recollect is (that) in some sense it was very a lot of successful,” Lovell stated throughout a 1994 interview. “Not that we completed something, however successful in that we demonstrated the potential of (NASA) personnel.”

Brush with dying

A retired Navy captain identified for his calm manner, Lovell advised a NASA historian that his brush with dying did have an effect on him.

“I do not fear about crises any longer,” he stated in 1999. Each time he has an issue, “I say, I may have been gone again in 1970. I am nonetheless right here. I am nonetheless respiration.’ So, I do not fear about crises.”

Former U.S. President Clinton stands with actor Tom Hanks, left, and former astronaut James Lovell within the Oval Workplace of the White Home Wednesday, July 26, 1995, after presenting Lovell with the Congressional Area Medal of Honor. Hanks portrayed Lovell within the film ‘Apollo 13’
| Picture Credit score:
AP

And the mission’s retelling within the standard 1995 film “Apollo 13” introduced Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert renewed fame – thanks partially to Lovell’s film persona reporting “Houston, we now have an issue,” a phrase he did not precisely utter.

Lovell had ice water in his veins like different astronauts, however he did not show the swagger some had, simply quiet confidence, stated Smithsonian Establishment historian Roger Launius. He known as Lovell “a really personable, very down-to-earth sort of individual, who says ‘That is what I do. Sure, there’s danger concerned. I measure danger’.”

Precursor to moon touchdown

In all, Lovell flew 4 area missions – and till the Skylab flights of the mid-Nineteen Seventies, he held the world report for the longest time in area with 715 hours, 4 minutes and 57 seconds.

Aboard Apollo 8, Lovell described the oceans and land lots of Earth. “What I hold imagining, is that if I’m some lonely traveller from one other planet, what I’d take into consideration the Earth at this altitude, whether or not I feel it will be inhabited or not,” he remarked.

That mission could also be as vital because the historic Apollo 11 moon touchdown, a flight made potential by Apollo 8, Launius stated.

“I feel within the historical past of area flight, I’d say that Jim was one of many pillars of the early area flight programme,” Gene Kranz, NASA’s legendary flight director, as soon as stated.

Iconic Apollo 13 mission

But when historians take into account Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 essentially the most important of the Apollo missions, it was throughout Lovell’s final mission — immortalised by the favored movie starring Tom Hanks as Lovell — that he got here to embody for the general public the picture of the cool, decisive astronaut.

The Apollo 13 crew of Lovell, Haise and Swigert was on the best way to the moon in April 1970, when an oxygen tank from the spaceship exploded 200,000 miles from Earth.

That, Lovell recalled, was “essentially the most scary second on this complete factor.” Then oxygen started escaping and “we did not have options to get house.”

“We knew we have been in deep, deep bother,” he advised NASA’s historian.

4-fifths of the best way to the moon, NASA scrapped the mission. All of the sudden, their solely objective was to outlive.

‘Houston…”

Lovell’s “Houston, we have had an issue,” a variation of a remark Swigert had radioed moments earlier than, grew to become well-known. In Hanks’ model, it grew to become “Houston, we now have an issue.”

What unfolded over the following 4 days captured the creativeness of the nation and the world, which till then had largely been detached about what appeared a routine mission.

With Lovell commanding the spacecraft, Kranz led a whole bunch of flight controllers and engineers in a livid rescue plan.

The plan concerned the astronauts shifting from the service module, which was hemorrhaging oxygen, into the cramped, darkish and frigid lunar lander whereas they rationed their dwindling oxygen, water and electrical energy.

Utilizing the lunar module as a lifeboat, they swung across the moon, aimed for Earth and raced house.

By coolly fixing the issues below essentially the most intense stress conceivable, the astronauts and the crew on the bottom grew to become heroes. Within the technique of turning what appeared routine right into a life-and-death wrestle, the whole flight workforce had created one in every of NASA’s most interesting moments that ranks with Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s walks on the moon 9 months earlier.

“They demonstrated to the world they may deal with actually horrific issues and produce them again alive,” stated Launius.

One remorse

The lack of the chance to stroll on the moon “is my one remorse,” Lovell stated in a 1995 interview with The Related Press for a narrative on the twenty fifth anniversary of the mission.

President Invoice Clinton agreed when he awarded Lovell the Congressional Area Medal of Honour in 1995. “Whereas you’ll have misplaced the moon … you gained one thing that’s much more vital maybe: the abiding respect and gratitude of the American individuals,” he stated.

Lovell as soon as stated that whereas he was upset he by no means walked on the moon, “The mission itself and the truth that we triumphed over sure disaster does give me a deep sense of satisfaction.” And Lovell clearly understood why this failed mission afforded him much more fame than had Apollo 13 completed its objective.

“Going to the moon, if the whole lot works proper, it is like following a cookbook. It isn’t that large a deal,” he advised the AP in 2004. “If one thing goes incorrect, that is what separates the lads from the boys.”

James A Lovell was born March 25, 1928, in Cleveland. He attended the College of Wisconsin earlier than transferring to the U.S. Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland. On the day he graduated in 1952, he and his spouse, Marilyn, have been married.

A check pilot on the Navy Check Centre in Patuxent River, Maryland, Lovell was chosen as an astronaut by NASA in 1962.

Lovell retired from the Navy and from the area program in 1973, and went into non-public enterprise. In 1994, he and Jeff Kluger wrote “Misplaced Moon,” the story of the Apollo 13 mission and the idea for the movie “Apollo 13”. In one of many closing scenes, Lovell appeared as a Navy captain, the rank he truly had.

He and his household ran a now-closed restaurant in suburban Chicago, Lovell’s of Lake Forest.

His spouse, Marilynn, died in 2023. Survivors embody 4 youngsters.