Jim Lovell, the astronaut who commanded the famous Apollo mission 13died, NASA announced on Friday. He was 97 years old.
Apollo 13, a flight from 1970 to the Moon, became known as a “successful failure” after the spacecraft experienced an explosion of oxygen reservoir to thousands of kilometers from the earth but managed to return safely at home.
The interim administrator of NASA, Sean Duffy, said in a statement that Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois. Duffy congratulated Lovell’s life and work, saying he inspired millions of people.
“The character of Jim and the firm courage helped our nation reach the moon and transform a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned a huge quantity,” said Duffy.
Lovell was the pilot of the order module for the years 1968 Apollo 8 missionThe first to transport humans to the moon and back, although he did not land on the lunar surface.
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Andrew Chaikin, author of the 2007 book “A Man On The Moon” on the Apollo program, told CBS News that Lovell had made some of the most memorable comments during the Apollo 8 TV transmissions. He recalled that Lovell called the Earth a “large oasis in the immensity of the space”.
“Lovell had the imagination, there was a part of Lovell which was a question of imagination, and it was an interesting part of him,” said Chaikin.
Apollo 8 surrounded the moon 10 times and returned the famous “Earthrise” photo of our world of space. Lovell thought about this trip 50 years later in a Interview with CBS News.
“Sometimes I look back and say, you know,” How did we never do that? “He said.
In 1970, Lovell had the chance to go back to the moon with Apollo 13, with crew committees Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, but the mission suddenly changed with the explosion.
“Houston, we had a problem here,” Swigert reported Mission Control. A few moments later, Lovell repeated: “Houston, we had a problem.”
The accident forced Lovell, his teammates and the NASA team on the ground to turn all their efforts towards the return to earth safely.
“Its calm pressure under pressure has helped bring the crew safely to earth and demonstrated the rapid thinking and innovation that enlightened future NASA missions,” said Duffy about Lovell.
Lovell graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1952 and became a naval aviator, including a four -year tour of the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland. Chaikin said Lovell had demonstrated his skills as a test pilot at Apollo 13.
“He always said that the real measure of a test pilot is not to know if you can do the mission you are assigned, but when things are not doing well, how you react,” said Chaikin.
Chaikin described Lovell as being calm and imperturbable throughout the crisis, but he recalled a moment when Lovell began to seem irritable.
“He is sleepless, and he worries about his crew and says:” You will have to understand this control list because we have to sleep “,” said Chaikin. “It’s like the only time in the whole mission when it even starts to show everything except Lovell and calm and imperturbable.”
The actor Tom Hanks played Lovell in the 1995 film “Apollo 13”, which was nominated for the best film at the Oscars.
In an Instagram post on Friday evening, Hanks wrote that “many Lovell trips on Earth and in a Som-Fermé to the Moon were not made for wealth or fame, but because these are challenges that these are what feeds the full moon, and which goes better, at the next trip, to the cosmos, at the speed of the stars. Jim Lovell.”
Before the film’s release, Chaikin said Lovell told him that Apollo 13’s real story had never been told.
“That’s what he felt,” said Chaikin. “Of course, everything has changed when Ron Howard made this film, to the point that Jim probably became the best known Apollo astronaut next to Neil Armstrong. But before this film occurred, he really felt this way. “”
NASA has shared a declaration by the Lovell family: “We are extremely proud of its incredible life and career achievements, highlighted by its legendary leadership in the pioneer flight of space. Nice.”
