Desk Report,
Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell dies
He was an astronaut for the US space agency NASA. He went to space multiple times. He was supposed to set foot on the moon in the space mission called ‘Apollo-13’. He also went close to the goal. However, he had to return to Earth due to an accident. He is Jim Lovell. This famous character of US space research died last Thursday at the age of 97.
Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell dies
NASA has issued a press release regarding the death of Jim Lovell. It says that Lovell breathed his last in the Lake Forest area of the US state of Illinois. Lovell was born in the state of Ohio on March 25, 1928. He joined NASA as an astronaut in 1962. He participated in the ‘Gemini-7’, ‘Gemini-12’ and ‘Apollo-8’ space missions. In 1968, the first man went to the moon’s orbit in the Apollo-8 mission. However, the Apollo-13 mission made Lovell famous separately. It was a breathtaking event.
The first human step on the surface of the moon was made by the Apollo 11 mission. In 1970, the Apollo 13 mission was supposed to be the third time humans went to the moon. Lovell was accompanied by two other astronauts—John Swigert and Fred Heiss—on that mission. When they were 322,000 kilometers away from Earth, an accident occurred. An oxygen tank in the spacecraft exploded.
Lovell immediately reported the matter to the control room on Earth. The explosion in the tank caused major damage to the spacecraft. It was decided to cancel the mission. In the face of great risk, thanks to the skills of Jim Lovell and NASA officials, the spacecraft finally landed safely in the Pacific Ocean three days later. The Apollo 13 mission is called a “successful failure.” That is, a failure that was a success.
That same year, Jim Lovell received the United States’ Presidential Medal of Freedom. 25 years later, a film about the Apollo 13 mission was released in 1995. Tom Hanks, who played Lovell in the film Apollo 13, said on Friday after Lovell’s death, “Some people know how to be brave. They know how to dream. They take people to places we couldn’t go alone.”
