Overview
- Lovell died August 7 at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois, with his family calling him “our hero” and NASA’s acting administrator praising his courage.
- He flew four missions—Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13—and logged 715 hours in space, twice orbiting the Moon without landing.
- An oxygen tank explosion on Apollo 13 in April 1970 forced the crew to use the lunar module as a lifeboat in a four-day return hailed as a “successful failure.”
- He received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and donated the original Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast script to Chicago’s Adler Planetarium.
- His life inspired the 1995 film Apollo 13, in which Tom Hanks portrayed him, and he is to be buried at the U.S. Naval Academy beside his wife, Marilyn.