![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP25220695936787.jpg.jpg\")
A retired Navy captain known for his calm demeanor, Lovell told a NASA historian that his brush with death did affect him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t worry about crises any longer,\u201d he said in 1999. Whenever he has a problem, \u201cI say, \u2018I could have been gone back in 1970. I\u2019m still here. I\u2019m still breathing.\u2019 So, I don\u2019t worry about crises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lovell had ice water in his veins like other astronauts, but he didn\u2019t display the swagger some had, just quiet confidence, said Smithsonian Institution historian Roger Launius. He called Lovell \u201ca very personable, very down-to-earth type of person, who says, \u2018This is what I do. Yes, there\u2019s risk involved. I measure risk.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lovell spent about 30 days in space across 4 missions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In all, Lovell flew four space missions \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aboard Apollo 8, Lovell described the oceans and land masses of Earth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat 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,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That mission may be as important as the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, a flight made possible by Apollo 8, Launius said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think in the history of space flight, I would say that Jim was one of the pillars of the early space flight program,\u201d Gene Kranz, NASA\u2019s legendary flight director, once said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lovell was immortalized by Tom Hanks\u2019 portrayal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
But if historians consider Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 the most significant of the Apollo missions, it was during Lovell\u2019s last mission that he came to embody for the public the image of the cool, decisive astronaut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That, Lovell recalled, was \u201cthe most frightening moment in this whole thing.\u201d Then oxygen began escaping and \u201cwe didn\u2019t have solutions to get home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe knew we were in deep, deep trouble,\u201d he told NASA\u2019s historian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four-fifths of the way to the moon, NASA scrapped the mission. Suddenly, their only goal was to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lovell\u2019s \u201cHouston, we\u2019ve had a problem,\u201d a variation of a comment Swigert had radioed moments before, became famous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What unfolded over the next four days captured the imagination of the nation and the world, which until then had largely been indifferent about what seemed a routine mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With Lovell commanding the spacecraft, Kranz led hundreds of flight controllers and engineers in a furious rescue plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019s finest moments that ranks with Neil Armstrong\u2019s and Buzz Aldrin\u2019s walks on the moon nine months earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey demonstrated to the world they could handle truly horrific problems and bring them back alive,\u201d said Launius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The loss of the opportunity to walk on the moon \u201cis my one regret,\u201d Lovell said in a 1995 interview with The Associated Press for a story on the 25th anniversary of the mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Bill Clinton agreed when he awarded Lovell the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1995. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhile you may have lost the moon … you gained something that is far more important perhaps: the abiding respect and gratitude of the American people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lovell once said that while he was disappointed he never walked on the moon, \u201cThe mission itself and the fact that we triumphed over certain catastrophe does give me a deep sense of satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Lovell clearly understood why this failed mission afforded him far more fame than had Apollo 13 accomplished its goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoing to the moon, if everything works right, it\u2019s like following a cookbook. It\u2019s not that big a deal,\u201d he told the AP in 2004. \u201cIf something goes wrong, that\u2019s what separates the men from the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A test pilot at the Navy Test Center in Patuxent River, Maryland, Lovell was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1962. He was the last of that second group of astronauts \u2014 called \u201cthe Next Nine\u201d \u2014 alive and thus had been an astronaut longer than any other person alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lovell retired from the Navy and from the space program in 1973 and went into private business. In 1994, he and Jeff Kluger wrote \u201cLost Moon,\u201d the story of the Apollo 13 mission and the basis for the film \u201cApollo 13.\u201d In one of the final scenes, Lovell appeared as a Navy captain, the rank he actually had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He and his family ran a now-closed restaurant in suburban Chicago, Lovell\u2019s of Lake Forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His wife, Marilynn, died in 2023. Survivors include four children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a statement, his family hailed him as their \u201chero.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible,\u201d his family said. \u201cHe was truly one of a kind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Babwin, the principal writer of this obituary, retired from The Associated Press in 2022. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Astronaut James Lovell, who was commander of the 1970 Apollo 13 mission that managed to get back to Earth safely after an oxygen tank explosion, has died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":109695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":21,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[101,26,21],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5265],"class_list":["post-77781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"VCO7TRWIPZCNZJEJN7DPNTZGBE","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2025\/08\/08\/apollo-13-mission-leader-navy-veteran-james-lovell-dies-at-97\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP25220706141039.jpg.jpg\")
He regretted never being able to walk on the moon<\/h2>\n\n\n\n