Rocket Man
The American astronaut James Arthur Lovell, Jr., served on four key space flights in the early days of the United States space program. During his first mission, on Gemini 7 in 1965, Lovell and crewmate Frank Borman set an endurance record by spending 14 days orbiting the Earth. Lovell served as commander of the Gemini 12 flight the next year. In 1968, Lovell and two other astronauts became the first people to circle the moon, during the flight of Apollo 8.
Lovell's fourth and last space flight was the ill-fated Apollo 13, an April 1970 mission to the moon that became a close brush with death. Two days into the flight, an oxygen tank in the craft's supply module exploded, leaving Lovell and his two crewmates, Fred W. Haise, Jr., and John L. Swigert, Jr., with barely enough power to return home. During a four-day journey around the moon and back to Earth, the astronauts endured freezing temperatures and a harrowing series of technical crises. With the world watching on television, the command module made a safe reentry into Earth's atmosphere and splashed down into the Pacific Ocean on April 17.
Twenty-five years later, Lovell reemerged on the public scene with the publication of Lost Moon, a nonfiction account of the Apollo 13 flight written by Lovell and science writer Jeffrey Kluger. The book was made into an award-winning movie, Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks as Commander Lovell. The film, a critical and popular hit in summer 1995, reestablished Lovell as an American hero.
Science Year: In your book, Lost Moon, you describe the day you first heard of the plan to put Americans into space. It was 1958, and you were a test pilot in Maryland. You and a few other pilots were summoned to a secret meeting in Washington, D.C., where officials asked for volunteers to sit in a tiny capsule on top of a ballistic missile and be blasted into space.
What was going through your mind as the officials sketched out what must have sounded like a far-fetched and incredibly dangerous project?
Jim Lovell: Actually, to me it sounded like a dream come true. I had been interested in rockets since I was a kid. At first, I wanted to become a rocket engineer—someone like Robert Goddard, who did the early American experiments with liquid fuel rockets, or Wernher von Braun, who developed Germany's V-2 rocket. I wrote a term paper in school on rockets where I said that maybe someday man would go into space using rocket power. I didn't have the money to go to the colleges where they taught rocket engineering, and that's how I ended up at the Naval Academy and became a Navy test pilot. So when I heard about the plan to put men into space, I thought this was my fate. It was just what I had been looking for.
Science Year: But you weren't admitted into the space program at that time.
Lovell: No. I was perfectly healthy, but my physical examination showed an elevated level of a liver pigment called bilirubin, and so they turned me down. It was really disappointing. I'd learned all about space flight before the Alan Shepards and the John Glenns even knew how to spell “rocket.” But I got in with the second group of astronauts in 1962.
Science Year: What was it like to be an astronaut in the early days? One of your fellow astronauts, Frank Borman, has said that his stint in the space program was as difficult as eight years of military combat.
Lovell: I kind of disagree with Frank about that, because in combat you see your opponents maximizing all their resources to make your life more risky, and with space flight, everyone is trying to minimize your risks. Everyone was trying to make the systems as accurate and as reliable as possible.
But being an astronaut in those days could be very difficult. Frank says his Gemini 7 mission with me—a two-week flight around the Earth in a very, very small capsule—was a more harrowing and challenging experience than any other flight. We had a lot of problems with malfunctioning fuel cells, and Frank was worried about whether we would hack it for the 14 days. Plus, Frank was an Air Force pilot, so he liked to be over land. Because the Earth is mostly covered with water, 70 percent of the time we were over the ocean. Being a former Navy pilot, I kept assuring Frank that the Navy would be there to pick us up, regardless of where we splashed down. But that was a pretty tough flight.
Science Year: And what about the fateful Apollo 13 mission? What was the worst part of that troubled flight?
Lovell: Just after the oxygen tank exploded. The flight data showed that my heart rate was 130 beats a minute—about twice normal. We thought at first the lunar module had been hit by a meteor. The other two astronauts and I tried to seal the hatch connecting the command module and the lunar module—like a submarine crew trying to clamp off part of the ship that's flooding. We never could get that hatch closed, so if we really had been struck by a meteor, we would have been killed.
Another low point was when we finally realized the severity of what was happening to our command module. We knew we were losing oxygen, which meant that we were losing electricity and losing our propulsion system. But we did not yet have any idea how to get home, and we were way far out into space.
Science Year: It also wasn't clear whether you would really have enough time to do anything about the problem.
Lovell: You are right. One of the most frantic times was when I was manually converting the data from our guidance system in the dying command module to the lunar module before our electric power ran out. The guidance system needed the data to monitor our attitude [position] with respect to the stars. With only about 15 minutes to make the transfer, I had to use pencil and paper to make the conversion of the angles.
Science Year: Talk about math anxiety.
Lovell: Oh, yes! Luckily, I had NASA controllers to check my calculations. These guys were safe on the ground, so they could sit down and calmly do the conversions. It happened pretty much the way it was shown in the movie.
Science Year: Was the film an accurate portrayal of the entire mission?
Lovell: Yes, I'm very happy with the way the movie turned out. The filmmakers could have set it on Mars if they wanted, but they kept it authentic.
The one thing in the film that disappointed me is that the characters used more profanity than we ever did. After seeing the movie, Fred Haise and I even checked the air-to-ground tapes because he didn't remember saying all those bad words. I understand the moviemakers spiced up the language because they wanted the movie rated PG-13 instead of PG.
Another distortion was making it seem that Fred Haise and I weren't really confident in Jack Swigert's ability at the beginning of the flight. In reality, we had great confidence in him before we ever took off. But the other incidents in the movie rang true. My wife did lose her engagement ring down the shower drain the day of liftoff. Swigert did forget to pay his income tax.
Science Year: It's hard to believe you three astronauts were so calm during the flight. Is the ability to keep your cool something that you're born with, or did you develop it as a test pilot?
Lovell: I think we developed it as test pilots. The three of us certainly could have panicked. We could have bounced off the walls of the command module for 10 minutes, but afterward we would have been right back where we started.
It was not like an airplane engine quitting or the wing falling off or something else that meant things were going to end in a hurry. As long as the spacecraft's pressure hulls were intact, we had a little time, and we knew the life-support system in the lunar module could give us alittle more time. We didn't panic because panic wouldn't have helped us. Logic took over and said, “Okay, here's a problem. Now, what's the solution?”
And of course we had the radio going, so we had help from a lot of people who were comfortably seated in a nice, warm control center and could think things through without worrying about getting killed.
Science Year: It seems to me that the quality people admire in you is your ability to show grace under pressure.
Lovell: I guess so. But you can get too confident, you know, and take foolish risks. And some problems just can't be overcome. If the explosion had cracked our heat shield, there was nothing we or the control center could have done about it. We just had to wade through and find out what would happen on reentry. But then again we felt it was much better to reenter somehow and end the flight—regardless of how things turned out—rather than to be a permanent monument to the space program orbiting the Earth.
Science Year: It's hard to imagine anything worse than being marooned to die in space that way.
Lovell: It's not a very comforting thought.
Science Year: And yet you and your colleagues had decided that such a death was preferable to dying on the ground, as astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee did in a 1967 fire on the launch pad, when they couldn't open their spacecraft's escape hatch.
Lovell: You've got to understand the makeup of the first groups of astronauts. We were all test pilots, so we all had a risky life. I was in other crises testing airplanes, where engines would quit, say, and I had to figure out what to do. But that life to me was so much better than a 9-to-5 job. I never cared to be punching a time clock. And so we would say that if you're going to be in this business and for some reason you're not going to make it, it's better to go out in style. Be stranded on the moon. Killed in a rocket spiraling up into space. That's the way we thought. I'm not so sure that today's astronauts feel the same way.
Science Year: How did you react to the Challenger disaster in 1986, when the space shuttle disintegrated in a ball of fire just after liftoff?
Lovell: I felt the way I did when a friend during my test-pilot days crashed and died in an experimental airplane. The rewards of working in that environment and accomplishing things are great. But it's a risky business. Every time you send humans into the vacuum at a high rate of speed, sitting on top of a lot of explosives, it's going to be risky. But that's the name of the game.
Science Year: At the time, some critics said we should not be sending nonprofessionals into space, that it was a mistake to put Christa McAuliffe, a high-school teacher from New Hampshire, on the flight.
Lovell: I agree completely. Sending her up was a public relations stunt that was a big mistake. NASA doesn't do that anymore. Everyone who goes into space now is a professional astronaut. They all understand the risks involved. Christa McAuliffe was also aware of the risks, but the people who were watching the disaster on television at home didn't understand that.
Science Year: Do you see any common thread among the Apollo 13 explosion, the Challenger disaster, and the launch-pad fire that killed Grissom, Chaffee, and White?
Lovell: I see perhaps a lack of foresight. The crew's death in the launch-pad fire was something we should have anticipated. All the astronauts had complained about the escape hatch long before the fire. The hatch was designed to maintain the ship's integrity so there wouldn't be any leaks in space, but to get out of that hatch in a hurry was almost impossible. As far as Apollo 13 goes, it was just a case of everybody missing the fact that we should have replaced one malfunctioning oxygen-tank thermostat with another before the launch. And there was a lack of quality control in the testing of the tank at Cape Canaveral before the flight.
For Challenger, there was too much delay in changing the design of the solid rockets on the shuttle. They knew about the problem and were working on it.
Science Year: What do you think about the changes you've seen in the U.S. space program since you were an astronaut?
Lovell: Well, the purpose of the old Gemini and Apollo missions was essentially pure research designed to develop space flight. The information we got from landing on the moon and from looking at moon rocks, for example, probably won't help you or me in any practical way.
Over the years, NASA matured, and its mission changed from basic research to providing more immediate, practical benefits. NASA today is a support organization. They support the Department of Agriculture by examining the Earth's land masses to monitor the growth of forests or crops. They can study the oceans and monitor weather patterns. And of course NASA supports private industry in many ways, such as by putting up communication satellites.
Another big change in the space program has to do with the public's level of interest in it. In the beginning, the program really captured everyone's imagination. People had been thinking about going to the moon for hundreds of years and we were finally going to do it. Today, people may read about what happens on the flights, but they don't have the same keen interest in them. It's human nature. We've had more than 70 shuttle flights as of this date. No one watches the take-offs on TV anymore, and that's natural. Even way back during the time of Apollo 13, no one was interested in the flight until the explosion.
Science Year: Did your time in space change you as a person? Some astronauts say the experience made them more spiritual.
Lovell: I didn't become more spiritual. The religious beliefs I had before I got into the program remained with me until the finish. God is down here on Earth with us right now as much as he is out in space, so there shouldn't be any real difference.
The experience did give me a new perspective on our place in the universe. When I was orbiting the moon and could put my thumb up to the window and completely cover the Earth, I felt a real sense of my own insignificance. Everything I'd ever known could be hidden behind my thumb.
Being in space also shows you how relative everything is. In this room, our whole universe is limited to these walls, the ceiling, and the floor. That's all we can see. You get in an airplane, and you start thinking in terms of cities. You think: “I've left Chicago, I'm over St. Louis now, and soon I'll be down to Houston.” You get in an Earth-orbiting spacecraft, and your horizon broadens to include whole continents. On the way to the moon, you think in terms of the entire solar system. The moon is up ahead, the sun to your left, the Earth behind you.
Science Year: You see the Earth as just another body moving through space?
Lovell: Yes. I wish everybody could have the experience of looking back at the Earth and realizing it's really no different from a spacecraft. The 5 1/2 billion inhabitants of Earth are all astronauts living on a spaceship that has limited resources. We have to use these resources very wisely if the ship is to keep us alive.
Science Year: Since Apollo 13 opened, have you been surprised by the public's interest in you and your flight?
Lovell: Totally surprised. It almost makes up for missing my chance to set foot on the moon. The flight of Apollo 13 was technically a failure, but it did prove man's ability to accomplish great things in a crisis. It showed the teamwork, the initiative, and the motivation of the people at NASA. In that respect, I now feel a sense of satisfaction that I really didn't have when I first came back.
The popularity of the movie has also shown me that there are more people interested in the space program than I had imagined. It looks as if the majority of Americans still believe in what we are doing in space, and that the money directed to the program is not ill spent. But they are a silent majority.
Science Year: Have you talked to anyone in Congress, which funds NASA, about that?
Lovell: Yes. Tom Hanks and I were in Washington, D.C., last fall for a reception in the House of Representatives just before Congress voted on funding the space station. A lot of politicians wanted to pose with me for a picture and get an autograph, but when I talked about the future, some said they were voting against the space station. I wish the silent majority of Americans would write to their representatives and say, “I support the space program. NASA is a creative agency that benefits Americans.”
Science Year: Why do you think the space station in particular is a worthwhile project? Many scientists claim that it is going to drain funding away from smaller research projects that might produce more significant results.
Lovell: You have to strike a balance between funding basic research projects and funding more practical projects like the space station. The station could be used for manufacturing materials such as alloys, crystals, and serums for medicine. Because of the lack of gravity in space, there aren't any convection currents, and so we can mix things a lot better up there. And if we had a mission to Mars, we could use the space station as a base for assembling a long-range space vehicle.
Today, the plan is to construct the space station jointly with some 14 other countries, including Russia. Now, if we are going to try to help the Russian economy get back on its feet in a more capitalistic way, we might as well get something out of it. And there's a lot of talent in space science in Russia. Why don't we tap it?
The space station enables us to work with other countries on a project that doesn't have the controversy of joint military missions or tariff negotiations, and the process of working together will give us a closer rapport.
Science Year: Yet you entered the space program when its primary aim was competing with the Soviets. Don't you have any hesitation about joining forces with them now?
Lovell: No qualms. It was a great race between us and the Soviets. Without such heated competition, we might never have gotten the interest ginned up in people about going to space. But now we have a chance at cooperative ventures, and I think that's great.
Science Year: The current NASA chief, Daniel Goldin, emphasizes the importance of doing smaller, simpler, cheaper space missions—for example, sending up unmanned probes rather than manned spacecraft. Do you agree with that philosophy, or do you think that NASA should do something grander—say, establish a moon base or launch a manned mission to Mars?
Lovell: Well, you have to be practical about this. Sometimes you have to get quick results, and the idea of doing things cheaper is always attractive. Goldin has, I think, done a very good job of aiming NASA toward international projects. The United States waffled for years trying to get a solely American space station up. It was too big, too complicated, and too expensive. And NASA didn't immediately realize that everything changed when the Soviet Union dissolved and we no longer had that great “evil empire” to compete against. I think Goldin has finally got NASA aimed in the right direction. If I were NASA's administrator, however, I would also lay the groundwork for some longer-term programs.
Science Year: Like trying to reach Mars?
Lovell: Yes. We already have the technology to go to Mars. No breakthroughs are required. The last question we had was whether people could safely stay in zero gravity for a space flight of a year's duration. The cosmonauts orbiting for long periods on the Russian space station Mir have essentially proven that it can be done. So all a Mars mission requires is time, effort, and money. Who knows what we might find when we get there? Who knows what practical benefits we might get from the endeavor?
I believe we will send people to Mars eventually, because human beings are curious animals, and because if America wants to be a leader in the world, we have to stay a leader in technology.
Science Year: What advice do you have for young people who might like to be astronauts on that mission to Mars?
Lovell: First, if you want to be successful as an astronaut or as anything else, you have to have keep trying. There will be disappointments in your life. You'll get so far and then there will be a setback. And if you let the setback overcome your drive, your willpower, then you're in trouble.
Look at me—I didn't make it into the Naval Academy the first time I tried. But I got in when I applied two years later. I didn't get in the space program the first time I tried. And I had plenty of setbacks as an astronaut, particularly during Apollo 13. We had crises all the way through the flight, but every time we overcame a crisis, our confidence went up a little bit more that we could probably make it home. Perseverance is really necessary in any field. Now, to be an astronaut today, it's very important to get a good education, but you don't have to become an aviator as I did. You can be a doctor, a physicist, a geologist, an astronomer, just about any kind of scientist. Being an astronaut can even be just a partial career. After your time in space, you can go on to do something else.
Science Year: Do you think you would enjoy being an astronaut today?
Lovell: My bag is packed if someone asks me to go.
Science Year: It would be great public relations for NASA to send you on a shuttle mission.
Lovell: Yes, maybe I ought to push for that. Send the old man up in space another time. And then, of course, there will be a problem with the shuttle, and everyone will be saying, “Holy cow, how are we going to get Lovell down this time?”