Jim Lovell, Milwaukee’s hometown astronaut and hero, dies at 97

Commander of Apollo 13 and astronaut aboard Apollo 8, Lovell uttered the famous line, “Houston, we have a problem.”

Milwaukee’s own Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 and astronaut aboard the celebrated Apollo 8, died Thursday at age 97 in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA said in a statement on Friday.

It was Lovell who uttered the famous line, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” The landmark movie about the 1970 mission was based on his memoir about the flight, with Tom Hanks playing Lovell.

Even if that flight had gone smoothly, Lovell would still be well-known for the Apollo 8 mission, mankind’s first trip to orbit the moon, when on Christmas 1968 he and two other astronauts took turns reading from the Bible’s book of Genesis as a worldwide audience looked on. Lovell is the only astronaut to make two lunar trips without ever setting foot on the moon.

It was Lovell who, along with astronauts Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, turned a failed moon mission in April 1970 into a triumph of on-the-fly, can-do engineering, after Apollo 13’s service module experienced a sudden oxygen tank explosion on its way to the moon. The astronauts barely survived, spending four cold and clammy days in the cramped lunar module as a lifeboat.

Lovell met his wife Marilyn while they were attending Milwaukee’s Juneau High School. He and Marilyn were married for 71 years before her passing in 2023.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Lovell also flew on Gemini 7 and Gemini 12, part of the Earth orbiting program that prepared NASA to send people to the moon. 

“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,” NASA said. “We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements.”

Jim Lovell’s career

One of NASA’s most traveled astronauts in the agency’s first decade, Lovell flew four times — Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 — with the two Apollo flights riveting the folks back on Earth.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 crew of Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders was the first to leave Earth’s orbit and the first to fly to and circle the moon. They could not land, but they put the U.S. ahead of the Soviets in the space race. Letter writers told the crew that their stunning pale blue dot photo of Earth from the moon, a world first, and the crew’s Christmas Eve reading from Genesis saved America from a tumultuous 1968.

The Apollo 13 mission had a lifelong impact on Lovell, who was supposed to be the fifth man to walk on the moon.

”The thing that I want most people to remember is (that) in some sense it was very much of a success,” Lovell said during a 1994 interview. ”Not that we accomplished anything, but a success in that we demonstrated the capability of (NASA) personnel.”

A retired Navy captain known for his calm demeanor, Lovell told a NASA historian that his brush with death did affect him.

“I don’t worry about crises any longer,” he said in 1999. Whenever he has a problem, “I say, ‘I could have been gone back in 1970. I’m still here. I’m still breathing.’ So, I don’t worry about crises.”

Aboard Apollo 8, Lovell described the oceans and land masses of Earth. “What 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,” he remarked.

President Bill Clinton agreed when he awarded Lovell the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1995. “While you may have lost the moon … you gained something that is far more important perhaps: the abiding respect and gratitude of the American people,” he said.

Jim Lovell’s life

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.

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 — called “the Next Nine” — alive and thus had been an astronaut longer than any other person alive.

After Gemini 7, the city of Milwaukee threw a parade in Lovell’s honor down Wisconsin Avenue. In 1996, the city renamed the downtown section of N. 7th Street to James Lovell Street.

Lovell retired from the Navy and from the space program in 1973, and went into private business. In 1994, he and Jeff Kluger wrote “Lost Moon,” the story of the Apollo 13 mission and the basis for the film “Apollo 13.” In one of the final scenes, Lovell appeared as a Navy captain, the rank he actually had.

He and his family ran a now-closed restaurant in suburban Chicago, Lovell’s of Lake Forest.

Survivors include four children.

In a statement, his family hailed him as their “hero.”

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

Don Babwin, the principal writer of the sections about Lovell’s life and career, retired from The Associated Press in 2022. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.