Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies

If there is one thing on my bucket llst that will never happen it is seeing the earth from space. Jim Lovell, one of the second group of NASA astronauts, did that four times, most notably in 1970 when, as commander of Apollo 13, he not only almost died in a weightless grave, he, his two colleagues and a ground team working feverishly on near impossibilities, managed to bring his crippled spacecraft back to earth safely. It was a time when the world quite literally watched in wonder.

Jim Lovell died two days ago aged 97. Although I was one of those who did follow almost every moment of Apollo 13, I was more in awe of his first Apollo flight, Apollo 8, the first manned flight to reach the moon and then fly around it at Christmas 1968. This was when one of his colleagues pointed his camera at the earth and took what has become an iconic photo.

Science & Society Picture Library / Getty Images

Many were against that flight, fearful of what might happen on the moon's dark side when there could be no communication with the earth. I recall that one was Sir Bernard Lovell, the British Astronomer Royal. I cannot now recall what doubts he then expressed about that mission, but others were very concerned about engine reliability. If it failed and the spacecraft could not get out of lunar orbit, Lovell's's heroics on Apollo 13 would never have happened. Presumably his body would still be circling the moon and we would have mourned his passing 55 years ago. These astronauts were true adventurers. I salute them all