.Astronaut James Arthur Lovell Jr. dies

Born (March 25, 1928, Cleveland, Ohio – August 7, 2025, Lake Forest, Illinois),[1] known as Jim Lovell, was an American NASA astronaut and retired United States Navy captain, best known as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered a critical failure on the way to the Moon, but was brought back safely to Earth thanks to the efforts of the crew and Mission Control. He was the author of the famous phrase: -Houston, we have a problem. He was the commander of the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Fred Haise (who was to land with Lovell) and Jack Swigert (command module pilot) accompanied Lovell on what was called a "glorious failure." The Odyssey command ship suffered an explosion in an oxygen tank in the service module two days into its mission, and the mission had to be aborted, initiating an unusual return journey to Earth that required a major collaborative effort by the NASA team led by Flight Director Gene Kranz and Lovell's leadership. The episode was recreated in Ron Howard's film Apollo 13, in which Tom Hanks played Commander Jim Lovell. Kevin Bacon (Swigert) and Bill Paxton (Haise) completed the cast. [7] Lovell is, along with John Young and Eugene Cernan, one of three astronauts to have traveled to the moon twice and the only one of the three who did not land on it.