Apollo 13 was only part of Jim Lovell's incredible life

Show Caption

One of just 24 people to have flown to the moon, famed Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell was the first person to fly there twice, but never landed on its rocky surface.

Lovell, who died Aug. 7 at age 97, is best known for captaining the Apollo 13 mission safely back to earth after a devastating onboard explosion, saving his own life, his crew and perhaps America's space program.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in an Aug. 8 statement that Lovell'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."

But Lovell achieved far more than just rescuing one mission.

Who was Jim Lovell?

As part of the Gemini and Apollo programs, Lovell was the first astronaut to go to space four times. He was the Mission Commander for the nearly disastrous Apollo 13 mission to the moon.

According to his NASA biography, Lovell held the record for time in space with a total of 715 hours and 5 minutes ‒ just under a month ‒ until surpassed by the Skylab flights in 1973 and 1974, where scientists performed experiments while circling the planet for months.

Gemini

Lovell was a pilot on the record-breaking 14-day flight of Gemini 7 in 1965, which joined with Gemini 6 for the first successful space rendezvous.

In 1966, Lovell was command pilot for the flight of Gemini 12, the last mission of the Gemini series, which remained in orbit for four days.

Apollo 8

Lovell served as command module pilot for 1968's Apollo 8 mission, which was the first to bring humans to the moon and back without landing on the lunar surface.

On that mission, Lovell and his crew became the first people to leave Earth's gravitational influence, lift off on a Saturn V rocket and orbit the moon.

Apollo 13

In 1970, Lovell had a chance to go back to the moon as commander of the Apollo 13 mission, expected to be the country's third lunar landing.

The explosion of an oxygen tank forced Lovell and crewmates Fred Haise and Jack Swigert to abort the mission and put their efforts toward returning to Earth safely as the command module vented oxygen into space.

During the chaos he uttered the phrase now often misquoted as, "Houston, we have a problem."

According to NASA, what actually happened was that Swigert called Mission Control seconds after the explosion and said: “Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here."

Capsule communicator (Capcom) astronaut Jack R. Lousma replied, “This is Houston. Say again, please.”

Lovell said: “Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem here. We’ve had a Main B Bus Undervolt.”

Working closely with Houston ground controllers, the three men converted their lunar module "Aquarius" into a lifeboat and were able to activate and operate lunar module systems to safely return to Earth.

Smilin' Jim

Lovell was known for his turn of phrase, which earned him the nickname Smilin’ Jim from his fellow astronauts because he was quick with a grin when he had a particularly funny comeback, Duffy said in his statement.

In a 2014 NPR interview, Lovell said his greatest impression from the Apollo 8 mission was not looking down at the moon but seeing the Earth.

"Just a small ball," he said, "Blue and white. Like a Christmas tree ball hung in an absolutely black sky. I could put my thumb up and completely hide the Earth. Everything I knew was behind my thumb."