Remembering Apollo 13’s Jim Lovell, the Most Down-to-Earth Astronaut

Jim Lovell’s job never required him to be a poet. Once the most experienced man in space flight—with two trips in the Gemini program and two lunar missions in Apollo—Lovell, who died August 7 at age 97, went places few others have gone and saw things few others had seen. But that didn’t mean there was music when he spoke.

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“We’re on our way, Frank,” was the best he could muster in 1965 when the engines on his Titan rocket lit and he and Frank Borman took off aboard Gemini 7.