Apollo 13 Mission Commander James Lovell died last week. He was 97.
I was just a youngster during the Apollo program and only vaguely remember the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. But I do recall an elderly woman, who was born at the dawn of the age of aviation, telling me during the broadcast of Eagle landing images, “That’s not the moon; that’s in some desert somewhere.”
By the time I was in college, inspired to follow in my father’s footprints as a Naval Aviator, I had learned a lot more about NASA and our space program. And a decade after graduating, my good friend, LTG Don Rodgers, introduced me to his bride, June Scobee Rodgers, widow of Challenger command pilot Dick Scobee, who perished with his crew on 28 January 1986.
Though my lifelong interest as a collector is American Revolutionary War writings and artifacts, June inspired me to take a giant leap from there into space memorabilia. My objective was, and remains, to complete a collection of rare signed Apollo astronaut and crew photos and donate those to the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education, founded by June.
From that collection, there is one item framed on a shelf in my study — a photo of Apollo 13 Flight Director Gene Kranz in NASA’s Houston Mission Control room with a large background screen showing Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell stepping onto the USS Iwo Jima after splashdown. Second only to the moon landing itself, the return of Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert is high among the most epic flight stories ever.
On 11 April 1970, Apollo 13 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on its way to our third moon landing.
At 55:54:53 into the flight, about 210,000 miles from Earth, a routine procedure resulted in an explosion. Swigert reported to NASA, “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Asked to repeat, Lovell responded, “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
Almost 87 hours later, Apollo 13 splashed down in the South Pacific Ocean. That is a historic testament to the incredible combined ingenuity of the crew, Mission Control, and Flight Director Gene Kranz.
The amazing sequence of events to get the crew back to Earth is covered well in the 1994 documentary “Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back,” which is available on YouTube. More recently, it is detailed in the 2024 Netflix documentary “Apollo 13: Survival.” The 1995 film “Apollo 13” was very faithful in its portrayal of the actual events.
“Failure is not an option” — a phrase I have repeated many times when facing challenges — is attributed to Gene Kranz and was popularized by the 1995 film. Though Kranz never said it, his leadership and actions demonstrated it far beyond those simple words. Kranz chose to name his 2000 memoir Failure Is Not An Option because it was “a creed that we all lived by.”
Apollo 13 was Jim Lovell’s fourth flight into space. At the time, he and Marilyn had four young children.
Jim was a Cleveland, Ohio, native. His father was killed in an auto accident when Jim was 11, and he was raised by his mom, Blanche. Life was very challenging for his widowed mom. After several moves, they settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Jim graduated from Juneau High School and was an Eagle Scout. He attended the University of Wisconsin for two years under the Navy’s “Flying Midshipman” program, studying engineering. Then, following in the steps of his uncle, he applied for and was admitted to the Naval Academy in 1948, graduating in 1952. While in college, he began dating his future wife, Marilyn, and they were married shortly after his graduation.
Jim then went to Naval Air Station Pensacola for his initial flight training, earning his Wings of Gold in 1954. After assignments in various carrier-based fighters, he entered a challenging six-month test pilot program in a class of 20 aviators and graduated top of his class. He was then in a larger pool of test pilots vying for assignments as astronauts and, in 1962, was among the second group for the Gemini and Apollo programs.
Before Commanding Apollo 13, he was the Pilot of Gemini 7, which achieved the first successful space rendezvous (with Gemini 6). He was Command Pilot of Gemini 12, which focused on “space walks.” And he was Command Module Pilot for Apollo 8, the first to lift off on the enormous Saturn V rocket and the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon.
Jim was a man of faith, and as you may recall, on Christmas Eve 1968, the Apollo 8 crew offered an eternal message of hope. As people around the globe watched live, grainy televised images as the crew emerged from behind the moon approaching the lunar sunrise, Lovell, Commander Frank Borman, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders began reading the Creation account from Genesis. Borman finished the broadcast by saying, “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”
In a 2018 interview, he said, “We go to heaven when we’re born,” implying that our journey of faith begins when we take our first breath. “Feel the breeze on your cheek, and know that God has really given us ability to be here,” he added.
On the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13 in 2020, Lovell wrote that “in the face of seemingly impossible odds, Americans didn’t let fear paralyze us,” and “instead we joined together, working calmly and efficiently to find a solution.” Oh but that we would all embrace those words today.
Of his passing, NASA Director Sean Duffy said: “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. We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements. … Jim Lovell embodied the bold resolve and optimism of both past and future explorers, and we will remember him always.”
Indeed.
Of their loss, his family said: “We are saddened to announce the passing of our beloved father … a Navy pilot and officer, astronaut, leader, and space explorer. We are enormously proud of his amazing life and career accomplishments, highlighted by his legendary leadership in pioneering human space flight. But, to all of us, he was Dad, Granddad, and the Leader of our family. Most importantly, he was our 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. He was truly one of a kind.”
It is estimated that 40 million Americans watched Apollo 13’s splashdown along with tens of millions of others worldwide. That day, a reporter observed that Apollo 13, “which came so close to tragic disaster … united the world in mutual concern.” Like never before, or since.
Blue Skies and Tailwinds, Jim Lovell, CAVU. And God bless your family through your departure.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
