American astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival and the basis for the hit movie Apollo 13, has died at the age of 97, Nasa said yesterday.
Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks played Lovell in director Ron Howard’s acclaimed 1995 film.
It recounted Nasa’s Apollo 13 mission, which was planned as humankind’s third lunar landing but went horribly wrong when an onboard explosion on the way to the moon put the lives of the three astronauts in grave danger.
Lovell and crew mates Jack Swigert and Fred Haise endured frigid, cramped conditions, dehydration and hunger for 3-1/2 days while concocting with Mission Control in Houston ingenious solutions to bring the crippled spacecraft safely back to Earth.
The Apollo 13 mission came nine months after Neil Armstrong had become the first person to walk on the moon when he took ‘one giant leap for mankind’ during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969.
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