Jim Lovell

Jim Lovell, a NASA astronaut who flew four historic missions, including the near-disastrous Apollo 13, died August 7, 2025, in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Over the course of his four missions, Lovell became one of the great symbols of the U.S. space program when it was at its 1960s height. Lovell was the first person who flew to the moon twice, though he never walked on its surface or even landed. He was the first to fly in space four times, and for a time he held the record of the most sunrises seen from space: 269.

Lovell's NASA career began in the U.S. Navy, where he enlisted in the 1950s and began a career as a test pilot. NASA often mined the test pilot program for astronaut recruits, and by 1962, Lovell had been selected for the Project Gemini program.

Gemini 7, launching December 4, 1965, was Lovell's first space flight, and on it, he served as the pilot alongside Frank Borman, the command pilot. They remained in space for 14 days, a record that would stand until the Skylab program of the 1970s surpassed it. The primary mission of Gemini 7 was a rendezvous with Gemini 6A, the first of its kind, which they performed successfully. On Gemini 7, Lovell and Borman also tested and helped refine basic necessities for space travel, including food supply, waste disposal, and personal hygiene. They were able to make recommendations that would improve comfort for future missions.

Almost a year later, Lovell was the command pilot for Gemini 12, the final mission of the program, flying with spaceflight rookie Buzz Aldrin. Among the missions of Gemini 12 was to experiment with extravehicular activity, though Aldrin completed this while Lovell helmed the ship.

Shortly after the Gemini program ended, the first flight of the Apollo program launched, with the goal of reaching the moon. Along with Cmdr. Borman, Lovell would fly as the command module pilot on Apollo 8, the first of the Apollo missions to leave Earth's orbit and achieve the program's goal. This historic spaceflight produced one of the most enduring images of the 20th century – the famous "Earthrise" photograph, taken by lunar module pilot William Anders, showing the Earth rising over the surface of the moon.

On Christmas Eve 1968, Apollo 8 entered the moon's orbit. Lovell, Borman, and Anders had been asked to offer a speech to the world when they achieved this goal, directed only to say "something appropriate," as Borman remembered at a 40th-anniversary celebration, to "the largest audience that had ever listened to a human voice." What they decided on was a Bible reading of the first 10 verses of Genesis, shared by the three men. Lovell added to Borman's remembrance, "The first 10 verses of Genesis is the foundation of many of the world's religions, not just the Christian religion. There are more people in other religions than the Christian religion around the world, and so this would be appropriate to that and so that's how it came to pass."

On Christmas Day, as Apollo 8 completed its final orbit of the moon and performed a trans-Earth injection (TEI) that would start it on its path back to Earth, tension was high as the astronauts would be out of contact with Earth while performing a tricky maneuver. When they completed the TEI successfully and regained contact with mission control, a relieved Lovell offered a quote that would become as memorable as the Earthrise photo: "Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus."

Coming as it did at the end of a turbulent year, the successful Apollo 8 mission became a beacon of hope for a nation that desperately needed one. The crew was chosen as Time's Men of the Year, and they recited the Pledge of Allegiance at Super Bowl III, just a few weeks after landing. They were American heroes, and their achievement paved the way for the following year's successful moon landing with Apollo 11.

In 1970, Lovell was back in space, flying as the commander of Apollo 13. The mission was intended to be a third moon landing, with Lovell joined by Jack Swigert and Fred Haise as they planned to explore the moon's Fra Mauro highlands. But things went very wrong two days after the April 11, 1970, launch.

Apollo 13 was still en route to the moon when an oxygen tank exploded, severely damaging the craft. Suddenly, landing on the moon was entirely impossible, and even a safe return to Earth seemed like a long shot. Using the moon's orbit to set them on a return trajectory to Earth and Apollo 13's lunar module as a lifeboat, the crew set out on a dangerous three-day journey home.

While the whole world held its collective breath, Lovell and his crew, along with mission control, improvised their way around potential disaster. Though the crew had to endure deprivation to reduce consumption of precious oxygen and water, they were able to solve problem after problem until their successful splashdown April 17 in the South Pacific.

The safe return of Apollo 13 became Lovell's most enduring legacy, but when he remembered the voyage with Life magazine in later years, he noted, "To this day, I still give talks to groups about what we went through, and what NASA learned all those years ago. And the one point I often stress is that it was teamwork - between the three of us in the lunar module and, later, in the command module and so many other people on the ground, at Mission Control - it was teamwork that got us home."

The disastrous flight of Apollo 13 was the subject of Lovell's 1994 book, "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13." The following year, director Ron Howard adapted the book into the hit film "Apollo 13," in which Tom Hanks portrayed Lovell. Lovell himself appeared in the movie in a non-speaking role as the captain of the USS Iwo Jima, Apollo 13's recovery ship. Lovell would also be portrayed by Tim Daly in the 1998 HBO miniseries, "From the Earth to the Moon."

Lovell retired from the military and NASA in 1973, later working in executive positions for Fisk Telephone Systems and Centel. In 1999, he and his family opened the Illinois restaurant Lovell's of Lake Forest, decorating it with memorabilia of his years in the space program. He was an advocate for science education and the space program, often speaking at schools.

The honors and awards bestowed on Lovell were many; they include the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. An Eagle Scout, he earned the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award as well as the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America. A crater on the moon is named in his honor, as is Milwaukee's James Lovell Museum of Science, Economics and Technology.

As discussions of a manned mission to Mars ramped up in the 21st century, Lovell advocated for a return to the moon first. He explained his reasoning to Forbes: "My view is that we should go back to the moon, build up the infrastructure to make flights there commonplace – be comfortable with it – then use that infrastructure to expand and go to Mars. In space-flight terms, six landings on the moon back in the '60s and '70s doesn't mean much. Mars is a long ways away. The moon is only 240,000 miles, but Mars is in the millions. It's too risky without spending more time going to the moon."

By Linnea Crowther

(Image: NASA via Wikimedia Commons)