Jim Lovell, the astronaut who led the Apollo 13 crew through one of spaceflight’s most famous emergencies, has died at his home in Illinois at the age of ninety seven. NASA honored him as a leader who inspired generations, and his family remembered a steady optimism that made people feel they could do the impossible.
Lovell flew four missions. He launched on Gemini Seven in nineteen sixty five, returned to orbit on Gemini Twelve the next year, and flew on Apollo Eight when that crew became the first humans to circle the moon. He is best known for Apollo Thirteen, where an oxygen tank explosion turned a moon landing into a fight to survive. Working with Mission Control, the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat and swung around the moon to make it back to Earth. The story became the book *Lost Moon* and later the film *Apollo 13*, with Tom Hanks portraying Lovell.
In later years he stayed connected to aerospace as a board member for Astronautics Corporation of America and also opened a restaurant. He and his wife Marilyn were married for more than seventy years before her passing in twenty twenty three. His life touched science, exploration, and culture, and his example remains a model of calm under pressure.
