‘One of my all time favorite people’: Apollo 13 flight director remembers James Lovell

James Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13 who helped turn a failed moon mission into a triumph of on-the-fly can-do engineering, has died, The Associated Press reported Friday. He was 97.

Gerry Griffin, one of four flight directors for Apollo 13 and later director of the Johnson Space Center, told KIRO Newsradio that Lovell was “one of his all-time favorite people.”

“He was not only a fighter pilot, a test pilot, a pioneering astronaut, extremely successful in the private sector. And everything he did after he kind of retired, he was backing space-related things. But the thing that I will most remember about Jim was he was one of the nicest, friendliest, thoughtful gentlemen I’ve ever been around,” Griffin shared.

Griffin said while astronauts can come off as robotic at times, that was not the case with Lovell.

“He could always find the light moment in any situation, he was very witty and fast, and big smile,” he shared.

Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, NASA said in a statement on Friday.

“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.”

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

But the big rescue mission was still to come. That was during the harrowing Apollo 13 flight in April 1970. Lovell was supposed to be the fifth man to walk on the moon. But Apollo 13’s service module, carrying Lovell and two others, experienced a sudden oxygen tank explosion on its way to the moon.

“He was the right guy to be the commander on Apollo 13 after the oxygen tank blew, because, for one thing, he was very skilled at space flight,” Griffin shared. “He’d flown three times already, and so he was he was experienced, and he knew what to do and what not to do.”

The astronauts barely survived, spending four cold and clammy days in the cramped lunar module as a lifeboat.

”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.”

And the mission’s retelling in the popular 1995 movie “Apollo 13” brought Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert renewed fame — thanks in part to Lovell’s movie persona reporting “Houston, we have a problem,” a phrase he didn’t exactly utter.

While Lovell never got to walk on the moon, Griffin said it didn’t weigh heavily on him.

“He was disappointed he didn’t get to do it. And he was out there twice. He was in close proximity to the moon twice. And of course, the first time it wasn’t planned to be. We didn’t even have a lunar lander on board. But the second time, he was ready — but he handled that just like he did everything else. It was what it was. He couldn’t undo it. I don’t think it ever affected him attitude-wise about the space program or anything else, I know it didn’t,” he shared.

James Lovell spent a total of nearly 30 days in space

In all, Lovell flew four space missions — and until the Skylab flights of the mid-1970s, he held the world record for the longest time in space with 715 hours, 4 minutes and 57 seconds.

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.

That mission may be as important as the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, a flight made possible by Apollo 8, Launius said.

“I think in the history of space flight, I would say that Jim was one of the pillars of the early space flight program,” Gene Kranz, NASA’s legendary flight director, once said.

James Lovell is survived by his 4 children

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.

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.

His wife, Marilynn, died in 2023. Survivors include four children.

Contributing: The Associated Press; Heather Bosch, KIRO Newsradio; Julia Dallas, MyNorthwest