![\"File](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/skynews-lovell-astronaut_6985935.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRetired astronaut and the commander of the famous Apollo 13 mission, Jim Lovell, has died aged 97.<\/p>\n
Lovell was one of NASA’s most-travelled astronauts in the agency’s first decade and flew four times – on Gemini 7, Gemini 8, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.<\/p>\n
Lovell helped turn the failed Apollo 13 moon mission into a triumph after managing to get back to Earth safely following an oxygen tank explosion.<\/p>\n
He was supposed to have become the fifth man to walk on the moon but the flight was thrown into jeopardy by the sudden explosion – which occurred when the spacecraft was 200,000 miles away from Earth.<\/p>\n
Lovell and the two other astronauts on board – Fred Haise and Jack Swigert – barely survived and spent four cold days in the cramped lunar module as a lifeboat while working with engineers and controllers on the ground to devise a rescue plan.<\/p>\n
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Image:
\n File pic: AP <\/p>\n
In a post on X, NASA said: “We are saddened by the passing of Jim Lovell, commander of Apollo 13 and a four-time spaceflight veteran.<\/p>\n
“Lovell’s life and work inspired millions. His courage under pressure helped forge our path to the Moon and beyond – a journey that continues today.”<\/p>\n
The agency also shared a statement from Lovell’s family, which read: “We are enormously proud of his amazing life and career accomplishments, highlighted by his legendary leadership in pioneering human space flight.<\/p>\n
“But, to all of us, he was Dad, Granddad, and the Leader of our family. Most importantly, he was our Hero.<\/p>\n
“We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humour, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind.”<\/p>\n
![\"Lovell](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/skynews-lovell-astronaut_6985980.jpg\")
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Image:
\n Lovell during a news conference in Florida before the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. Pic: AP<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n NASA administrator Sean Duffy said Lovell’s life and work “inspired millions of people across the decades”.<\/p>\n “Jim’s character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount,” he said. “We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements.<\/p>\n “From a pair of pioneering Gemini missions to the successes of Apollo, Jim helped our nation forge a historic path in space that carries us forward to upcoming Artemis missions to the moon and beyond.”<\/p>\n Read more: Image: Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks played Lovell in the 1995 film Apollo 13, bringing the astronaut renewed fame.<\/p>\n In the movie, the line “Houston, we have a problem” is famously said by Hanks – but in real life, it was Swigert who spotted a warning light and said a slightly different sentence to Mission Control: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”<\/p>\n The year of the film’s release, Lovell was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by then US president Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired astronaut and the commander of the famous Apollo 13 mission, Jim Lovell, has died aged 97. Lovell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-55518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n Lovell poses with Tom Hanks, who played him on the big screen. Pic: Reuters<\/p>\n