The man, the mission and the moon

Apollo 13’s Saturn V rocket being moved during assembly, Dec. 16, 1969.

Photo courtesy NASA

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The man, the mission and the moon

A moment with Apollo 13 commander and Milwaukee native Jim Lovell

by Sara J. Martinez

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ay 25, 1961. Your young, modern president has been in office only a few months, and he’s still spouting the same revolutionary ideas from his campaign. By the end of this decade, he says, the United States will put a man on the moon.

Just 20 days ago we saw the first American man get launched into space. The Mercury Freedom 7 carried Alan B. Shepard Jr. in a suborbital flight. He didn’t even orbit the Earth, let alone reach the moon.

something that would surely lead to a technological revolution and catapult the country further into a major global leadership position.

Change will come, he said. And it did.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin took Apollo 11 into space, making headlines and history with the first manned soft landing on the moon and the first moonwalk.

Mission accomplished. Or not.

A man on the moon? Within the decade? That “one small step” will always be remembered, Inconceivable. but even more iconic in American history are five words uttered by Milwaukee native Jim Lovell, the only man to have ever flown to the moon Not so, says President John F. Kennedy Jr. twice without making a landing: “Houston, we've America needs to be renewed, and he promises had a problem.” marquettejournal.org

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n Dec. 21, 1968, six months before Apollo 11, Capt. James A. “Jim” Lovell Jr., along with Frank Borman and William A. Anders, set out on what would be the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon. They orbited the moon 10 times over the course of 20 hours, providing a Christmas treat to awestruck Americans. Hope had reaffirmed the collective faith in the country: anything was possible. This proposed moonwalk would be a cakewalk.

Less than a year after Armstrong took a giant leap for mankind, Lovell would have the chance to not only orbit the moon a second time, but also to take his own treasured steps on the soft ground, to collect his own moon rocks and to leave his own dusty trail of footprints.

On April 11, 1970, Lovell and crewmembers Fred Haise and Jack Swigert took off on Apollo 13, intending a third American lunar landing after the United States’ second successful moonwalk in July 1969.

Two days into the mission, however, an oxygen tank explosion within the shuttle would change everything. The damage would make a lunar landing impossible, and the quick oxygen depletion made a safe return to Earth improbable.

“Houston, we’ve had a problem,” Lovell told mission control. Regularly misquoted in popular culture, Lovell’s calm and collected assertion demonstrated a composure that would be key in assisting his own safe return to Earth. His relaxed nature is apparent even today, an 80-year-old man who elected to be interviewed at the Starbucks across the street from his son’s restaurant in Lake Forest, Ill. Upon my arrival at Lovell’s of Lake Forest on a snowy day after Christmas, exactly 40 years since Lovell and his crew landed back on Earth after Apollo 8, Lovell was sitting in his car outside the restaurant.

“I can’t get in,” he said. “I can’t get ahold of my son, and they changed the locks to the place. How about we head over to Starbucks?”

Locked out of his restaurant on a Sunday afternoon? No big deal — he’s seen worse.

(above and middle) Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell meets with Journal editors Sara J. Martinez and Patrick Johnson. (bottom) Lovell points out the Steeds of Apollo mural behind the bar at Lovell’s of Lake Forest, Lake Forest, Ill. Photos by Tim Lamberger (right) Lovell during suit-up before the Apollo 13 mission, April 11, 1970. Photo courtesy NASA

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“W

e didn’t know what the situation was or the trouble we were in until we saw the oxygen escaping from the spacecraft,” Lovell said about the initial explosion on Apollo 13. “Then we began to worry.”

As reality hit, the new mission was clear: survival.

“I thought our chances were quite slim in the beginning, but you had to think positive. If you think negative about something, you never get anywhere,” Lovell said. “We had to figure out what we had to work with, what the problems were, what the crises were. And working with the ground, we were able to overcome these crises that came along.”

a positive attitude and by focusing on what they could do to solve each individual problem as it arose. The big picture, that they were on a doomed mission with the likelihood of three fatalities, had to be pushed aside. It was important to focus on the little things, he said, working them out one by one to get back on the proper course.

We’re interrupted by a young girl and her mother.

“Are you the astronaut?” they ask.

“Why, yes I am,” he smiles and shakes hands with the child. He turns back to us, “It’s their tax money that put me up there, I guess I’d better say hello.”

It’s no longer as important to him that he never got to walk on the moon after being so close twice. The he Apollo 13 mission cost $4.4 billion, accordjourney and how he overcame the crisis is what’s ing to NASA. Today, the average cost of a space important. shuttle launch is about $450 million per mission.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Lovell and his crew hold the absolute altitude record for a manned spacecraft, meaning they have traveled Lovell said he and his crew were able to survive by the farthest from Earth than any human in history at working with the cards they were dealt, by keeping approximately 248,658 miles from Earth at one point.

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Lovell said he would return to space if he had another opportunity, but individuals sent into space need to be positive assets to the flight and to add something that makes it worthwhile to send them up there.

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What’s with the horses?

Photos by Tim Lamberger In 1969, the St. Regis Hotel in New York City commissioned artist Luman Winter to depict a mural of the great horses of the sun-god Apollo, whose mission was to pull the Chariot of the Sun across the sky.

The Apollo 13 crew asked Winter to design the mission’s insignia based on this 20-by-8 foot mural titled “Steeds of Apollo.” The symbolic patch illustrates three flying horses pulling the Apollo crew’s “chariot” through the cosmos. The motto “Ex luna, scientia,” means “From the moon, knowledge.”

“Steeds of Apollo” was displayed in the main lobby of the St. Regis Hotel for several years, but it went missing after the hotel was refurbished.

In 1994, the painting resurfaced at an auction of space artifacts in California during the filming of “Apollo 13.” Tom Hanks, who portrayed Jim Lovell in the Academy Awardwinning film, purchased the mural and gave it to the Lovell family.

It is now on display behind the bar at the entrance to Lovell’s of Lake Forest in Lake Forest, Ill. Lovell said the mural has an important symbolic value: the fourth horse in the background represents Ken Mattingly, Apollo 13’s original command module pilot. After it was found that he had been exposed to German measles, Mattingly was replaced by Jack Swigert — two days before launch.

From Houston, Mattingly played a key role in helping the crew to navigate a safe return to Earth after the oxygen tank explosion.

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(top) Fred Haise, left, and Lovell training for the fateful mission. (above) Apollo 13 lifts off, April 11, 1970. (above right) Mission control, shortly before the Apollo 13 crew began having difficulties. Lovell’s flightmate, Fred Haise, can be seen on the screen.

April 13, 1970. (right) An in-flight photo of the makeshift device that saved the crew’s life. The device removed excess carbon dioxide from the cabin.

It was constructed, per instructions provided

by Houston, from duct tape, maps and other materials they had on hand in the spacecraft.

Photos courtesy NASA

“A lot of people who go into space now aren’t even “I was very, very lucky to have been in the right pilots,” Lovell said. They’re mission specialists, geol- place, at the right time, with the right credentials,” ogists, astronomers, engineers and more. Nowadays, Lovell said. young astronauts are much better educated than he was, Lovell said, many with doctorate degrees.

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Lovell went to the University of Wisconsin-Madhere is a positive value to our work in space, ison on a naval ROTC scholarship and after two Lovell said, and he hopes to see the Obama years was appointed to the United States Naval administration recognize the positive value of Academy to study aviation. work in space and to continue its funding and research. One great return from the investment, he “In high school, I really wanted to be a rocket en- emphasized, is the development of technology that gineer, but I didn’t have any money to go to col- keeps the United States first in the world. lege,” he said. He credits the Navy for providing his education.

Today, robots have reduced the need for humans to do monotonous yet When Lovell first apdangerous work outplied for the space proside of the spacecraft.

“The human brain is gram, however, he was Regular maintenance the most complex and turned down. He wasn’t operations duties have cheapest computer we can selected to join the been replaced by smart put into space.”

NASA astronauts until machines. The need for late 1962 after being rewell-educated astrojected from the original nauts and Americans Mercury Seven. eager to continue space exploration, however, will never go away, Lovell said.

His advice to students is to, above all, get a good education. Be aggressive, and if you are turned “The human brain is the most complex and cheapdown, keep trying. Prospective astronauts should est computer we can put into space,” he said. “There keep this advice in mind, he said. will always be a place for man.”

“I was very disappointed that I didn’t make the Mer- With the proposed space shuttle retirement loomcury program, but that’s the way it goes,” Lovell said. ing, Lovell said he thinks that it will be drastic if “If you get turned down the first time, try again.” the administration goes forth with the plan. The U.S. would become dependent on Russia to proHis persistence paid off, and his experiences will vide support for the international space station for never be forgotten — there is even an Academy the next four to five years, he said. He hopes PresiAward-winning film commemorating the “suc- dent Obama will see the benefits of space research cessful failure” of Apollo 13. and development.

The money used for economic bailouts, he said, could be used for something more productive that will provide positive results rather than just keeping certain companies afloat.

“I think the space program should focus on good challenges,” Lovell said, like going back to the moon, or eventually going to Mars. “Perhaps in your lifetimes.”

Mars? We laughed, much like the people laughed in 1961, Lovell said.

“In 1961, when President Kennedy announced that they were going to land on the moon before the end of the decade, I thought they were absolutely crazy,” he countered. “When he made that announcement, we had not yet put anybody into Earth orbit. Alan Shepard made a 15-minute suborbital flight about two weeks before that talk.” At that point in time, sending someone to the moon really was inconceivable.

A young, innovative president took office in 1961, promising a hopeful future and changes that would unify the nation. He entered office in times of social and economic turmoil, and he offered a promise that seemed outrageous. Though he was assassinated two years later, his dream lived on, and that incomprehensible vision became a worldchanging reality.

Will man land on Mars in Lovell’s lifetime? Probably not, he said.

In ours? Anything is possible.

Patrick Johnson contributed to this story.

(above) Lovell and crewmates Haise, right, and Swigert, not pictured, receive a call from President Richard Nixon upon their safe return to Earth. Photo courtesy NASA (right) Lovell in the “Captain’s Quarters” lounge at Lovell’s of Lake Forest, nearly 40 years after his historic flight. Photo by Tim Lamberger

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