Wired Word Lesson of the Week
Topic for Sunday, August 24, 2025:
Apollo 13 Moon Mission Commander Jim Lovell Dead at 97: Astronaut Jim Lovell, portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie Apollo 13, was a legendary leader in human space flight. His death leads us to focus on looking at humanity from the perspective of space, grace under pressure, and trusting God to show us the path forward.
In the News
Individuals are encouraged to read the news below related to this topic before the August 24th bible study to be prepared for an engaging converation:
U.S. Navy Captain James A. (Jim) Lovell, commander of Apollo 13, has died. On Friday, August 8, his family issued a statement saying that they had lost their beloved father, "a Navy pilot and officer, astronaut, leader, and space explorer." He died one day earlier in Lake Forest, Illinois, at age 97.
His family went on to say that they were "enormously proud of his amazing life and career accomplishments, highlighted by his legendary leadership in pioneering human space flight. ... But, to all of us, he was Dad, Granddad, and the Leader of our family. Most importantly, he was our Hero. We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind."
Lovell's remarkable life began with hardship. The Washington Post reports that he was an only child, raised by his mother after his father died in a car crash in 1933. He spent most of his youth in Milwaukee and then applied to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Initially rejected, he attended the University of Wisconsin for two years, and then applied again to the academy and was accepted. In 1952, three hours after his graduation, he married his high school sweetheart, Marilyn Gerlach, to whom he was married until her death in 2023. The couple had four children, 11 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.
Lovell was on Apollo 13 in 1970, along with fellow crew members Fred Haise and John Swigert, taking part in NASA's third mission to the moon. The spacecraft experienced an in-space emergency when a critical oxygen tank exploded during the mission. Under Lovell's leadership, the spacecraft safely returned to earth. Twenty-five years later, Lovell was played by Tom Hanks in the movie Apollo 13, directed by Ron Howard.
The phrase "Houston, we have a problem," was Hanks' version of Lovell's call to NASA ground control after the explosion rocked the spaceship. It has become part of the American lexicon, a way of signaling that something is terribly amiss. But the movie engaged in artistic license, according to The New York Times. In the real-life Apollo 13, it was the command module pilot Swigert who first told NASA that there was trouble.
There can be no doubt, however, that Lovell's grace under pressure helped to save the entire crew. The three astronauts used the undamaged lunar module, which had been designed to descend to the moon with Lovell and Swigert, as a lifeboat for the three men. But the lunar lander had limited oxygen, since it was designed to carry only two astronauts for up to two days. All three members of the crew crowded into the lunar module, and then the spacecraft looped around the moon before making a slingshot-like maneuver back toward Earth.
Lovell maneuvered the rocket firing to get the spacecraft on a course for the trip home. As the astronauts approached Earth, they moved back into the nearly lifeless command module, needing its heat shield for the descent through the Earth's atmosphere. After jettisoning the lunar module, the astronauts tapped the last of the command module's battery power and reserve oxygen to make it to a safe splashdown in the Pacific.
As they struggled to survive in space, Lovell said that they had no fear. "We were all test pilots, and the only thing we could do was try to get home," he told The New York Times. "The idea of despair never occurred to us, because we were always optimistic we would get home."
In a statement, NASA Director Sean Duffy said, "Jim's character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success from which we learned an enormous amount. We mourn his passing even as we celebrate his achievements." Duffy added that Lovell "helped our nation forge a historic path in space that carries us forward to upcoming Artemis missions to the moon and beyond."
Apollo 13 was not Lovell's first space mission. The New York Times reports that Lovell started out as a Navy test pilot and then flew for 715 hours in space, the most of any astronaut in the pioneering Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. He took part in two Gemini missions that orbited Earth and was one of the three astronauts aboard Apollo 8, the first spaceflight to orbit the moon, before he was chosen by NASA for Apollo 13. In competition with the Soviet Union, the United States was determined to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, which was achieved with Apollo 11.
"As the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 8," said Duffy, "Jim and his crewmates became the first to lift off on a Saturn V rocket and orbit the moon, proving that the lunar landing was within our reach. As commander of the Apollo 13 mission, his calm strength under pressure helped return the crew safely to Earth and demonstrated the quick thinking and innovation that informed future NASA missions." NASA's verdict was that Apollo 13 was a "successful failure," offering the space agency valuable experience in crew rescue.
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