Jim Lovel, who led Apollo 13 safely back to Earth died at 97

Astronaut Jim Lovel, who led the mission of Apollo 13, safely back to Earth in 1970, died at the age of 97.

NASA said it “turned a potential tragedy into success” after an attempt to land the moon was interrupted due to an explosion aboard the spacecraft while it was hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth.

Tens of millions watched on television as Lovel and two other astronauts scattered back into the Pacific, a moment that has become one of the most emblematic in the history of space trip.

Lovell, who was also part of Apollo 8’s mission, was the first person to go to the moon twice.

NASA Duffy Dufi’s leader said that Lovel helped the US space program “fuck a historic path”.

In a statement, the Lovell family said, “We will miss his unwavering optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel that we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind.”

One Saturday, a 16-year-old has inserted a heavy three-foot tube in the middle of a big field in Wisconsin.

He had convinced his science teacher to help him make an impromptu rocket. Somehow he was able to deal with the ingredients for gunpowder – potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal.

He pulled the helmet of a welder for protection. He packed him with dust, hit a match and ran like hell.

The rocket rose 80 feet in the air and exploded. If the chemicals had been packed a little differently, it would have been blown into pieces.

For Jim Lovell, it was more than a baby whirlwind.

By achieving his dream of being a rocket scientist, he will become an American hero. But it wouldn’t be easy.

James Arthur Lovell, Jr. was born on March 25, 1928 – just a year after Charles Lindberg made his historic journey through the Atlantic.

“Guys like dinosaurs or planes,” he said. “I was a very boy from an airplane.”

But when he was five, his father died in a car accident.

His mother Blanche worked throughout the hour, struggling to keep his family in clothes and food. The university was far beyond their financial scope.

The answer was the US Navy, which was hungry for new pilots after World War II. He didn’t build rockets, but at least he included flying.

Lovel registered with a program that sent him to a college at the expense of the military while training as a fighter pilot.

Two years later, he was betting and moved to the Navy Academy in Anapolis, in Chesapik Bay, hoping to work with his favorite rockets.

It was a happy decision.

A few months later, the Korean War broke out and his former apprentice pilots were sent to Southeast Asia. Many should never complete their education.

The marriage was banned in Annapolis and girlfriends discouraged. The Navy did not want her average people to waste their time for such lightness.

But Lovell had a sweetie. Marilyn Gerlah was the girl from the high school who shyly asked for the ball.

The women were not allowed on the campus, and the travels outside were limited to 45 minutes. Somehow the relationship survived.

Just hours after graduation in 1952, the recently ordered envoy of Lovel married her.

They will be together for more than 70 years, until Marilyn’s death in 2023.

He did his best to advertise his love for the rocket.

His thesis at the Navy Academy was in the unprecedented topic of liquid fuel engines. After graduation, he hoped to specialize in this innovative new technology.

But the Navy had other ideas.

Lovell was assigned to the aircraft carrier who fly Banshee Jets from ships at night. It was a white bone business, a high -performance business only for Daredevils. But it wasn’t enough for the Lovele.

In 1958 he applied to NASA.

Project Mercury was America’s attempt to put a person in orbit around the ground. Jim Lovel was one of the 110 test pilots considered to be selected, but the temporary state of the liver paid off on his chances.

Four years later, he tried again.

In June 1962, after the exhausting medical tests, NASA announced its “new nine”. These would be the men to export President Kennedy’s promise to put American boots on the moon.

It was the most elite group of flying men they had ever gathered. They included Neil Armstrong, John Young and, fulfilling his childhood dream, Jim Lovel.

He was ready three years later.

His first trip to space was aboard the twins of two people 7. Lovell and colleague Astronaut Frank Borman ate breakfast with steaks and eggs and blew up.

Their mission: To find out if men can survive for two weeks in space. If not, the moon was inaccessible.

The record for endurance completed, the next flight of Lovell was in command of Gemini 12 together with the space rookie, Buzz Aldrin.

This time, they proved that the person could work outside a spacecraft. Oldrin climbed uneasily in the void, spending five hours, photographer star fields.

Now for the moon herself.

The crew of Apollo 8 will be the first to travel beyond the low Earth orbit and will enter the gravitational pull of another celestial body.

It was NASA’s most dangerous mission so far.

The Saturn V rocket, which shot Lovell, Borman and William Anders from our atmosphere with 25,000 miles per hour, was huge – three times larger than everything seen in the Gemini program.

As a navigator, Lovell took a sextant with him to take star readings – if computers fail and they had to find their way home.

Sixty -eight hours after departure, they did it.

The engines fired and Apollo 8 slid silently behind the moon. The men heard at home in their headset as the mission control radio signaled and then failed.

The astronauts of the spells nailed to the windows, the first people to see the far side of our closest neighborly neighbor. And then, from above the progress horizon, incredible views.

“Earthrise”, bartering Borman.

“Take the camera quickly,” Lovel said.

It was Christmas Eve 1968.

America had been sunk in Vietnam abroad and civil excitement at home. But at that moment it seemed that humanity was united.

People around the world saw their planet, as astronauts saw it – fragile and beautiful – brilliant in the emptiness of space.

Lovel read from the book of Genesis, the basis of many of the world’s great religions, of humans on Earth.

“And God called the light day, and the darkness he called. And in the evening and in the morning were the first day.”

For him, it was an image that changed our world forever. He put his thumb to the window and the whole world disappeared behind him. It was the most touching experience in his life.

As the spacecraft reappears from the dark, Lovell first announced the “good news”. “Please be advised,” he said, when the radio gets into life, “There is Santa.”

At that moment, at 239,000 miles, a man in the blue Rolls-Royce escaped in front of the Houston house in Houston.

He walked past the dozens of reporters, camp out and handed a box to Marilyn.

She opened the paper tissue paper and pulled out a mink jacket. “Happy Christmas,” said the card that came with her, “and love from the man on the moon.”

They climbed like astronauts and went down to celebrities. People on Earth had followed their every move on television.

There were parades of ribbon, congressions and place on the cover of Time magazine. And they hadn’t even stepped on the moon.

This honor went, of course, to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

A year later, Kennedy’s dream was posthumously seen on fruit. A small step was taken and humanity made its giant jump. The new nine did their job.

In April 1970 it was the turn of Jim Lovel. Fortunately, the crew of Apollo 13 did not believe in unhappy numbers.

Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were men of science – highly trained and determined to follow Armstrong and Oldrin to the moon’s surface. But things went wrong.

They were 200,000 miles above the ground and closed at their target when they noticed low pressure in a hydrogen tank. It needed a move to stop the super cold gas to settle into layers.

Swigert threw the switch. It had to be a routine procedure, but the command module, the Odyssey, was shaking. The oxygen pressure fell and the power turned off.

“I believe we had a problem here,” Sweegrt said. Lovell had to repeat the stunned mission control: “Houston, we had a problem.”

It was one of the largest underestimation of all time. The crew was in big problems – a dramatic explosion had disabled their craft.

Haise and Lovell worked frantically to launch the lunar module, Aquarius.

It should not be used until they reached the moon. It had no heat shield, so it could not be used to re -enter the Earth’s atmosphere. But this can keep them alive until they get there.

The world stopped breathing and watched.

For the second time, Jim Lovell had gathered the world as one. The first time he was for Earthrise, the second would witness his fight for survival.

“For four days,” said Marilyn, “I didn’t know if I was a wife or a widow.”

Temperatures fell to freezing, food and water were marked. It was days before they were limping back to the periphery of the earth’s atmosphere. They boarded the Odyssey and prayed that the heat shield had not been damaged.

The radio, which accompanies re-entry, lasted much longer than normal. Millions watched on television, many convinced that everyone was lost.

After six agonizing minutes, Jack Swigert’s voice cut the silence.

The Earth’s breath team as the parachutes unfolded and the crew was safely removed.

The mission was NASA’s largest failure and without a doubt its best hour.

Lovel retired from the Navy in 1973 and chose the quiet life working for the Bay Houston towing company, issuing speeches and acting president of the National Scouts Association of the Eagle.

His book, Lost Moon: The Short Sail of Apollo 13, became the famous 1995 film starring Tom Hanks in the role of Jim Lovel.

For the movie, the director asked him to dress like an Admiral. It was for Cameo’s scene, shaking hands with a Hanks when the crew was saved from the sea.

But the old American hero did not have it.

Jim Lovell was on the moon twice, witnessing the Earth, and closely avoided a cold death in space – and saw no reason to burn his false summary.

He pulled out his old naval uniform, dropped it and put it on the appearance of Cameo.

“I retired as a captain,” he insisted, “and the captain I will be.”