Transcription by eCourt Reporters
JAMES LOVELL: We were looking forward to the 50th anniversary. I planned to go up to the Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, Kansas, where the spacecraft was located, it was on display, and just say goodbye to it. And then later on to go down to the Kennedy Space Center, and we were going to have a 50th anniversary reunion with the mission control team and the president and myself and the families, we were going to bring the families down there. Of course, all that was put aside with this virus that’s going on. And so, I’m pretty well stuck here in Lake Forest, Illinois, at my desk in my study.
SCOTT WARRAS: How often do you get a chance, as it were right now by phone or by email — how often do you stay in touch with Fred Haise, a member of that crew, and other members of the ground control team?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, we do quite often. In fact, when we were planning to do these reunions, we were talking to each other back and forth, wanted to talk to the Grumman team that was responsible for the lunar module, and then of course the other teams, the manufacturing teams, and things like that just to maybe — 50th anniversary today, I’m 92, is probably, you know, we won’t have too many more of them. So, this is good time to celebrate, and now we’re trying to put them aside until October, I think, where they’re looking at redoing it and — if everything goes okay with regards to the virus.
SCOTT WARRAS: How often do those memories and of that Apollo 13 mission — how often do they come back to you when you find yourself remembering what happened and what you overcame?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, now is a good time for memories to come back because I’m, you know, sitting here at my desk thinking back, and I can put the music on my computer of Apollo 13, you know, movie and things like that. But, actually, I think back long before that. I think back in my days in Milwaukee as a kid because I remember thinking about, not exactly spaceflight because there wasn’t anything at that time, but airplanes. And then I — during high school, we built a little solid rocket and I had written a book — I had not — I had read a book on rocket technology, and so I was quite interested in high school days about what I ended up doing.
SCOTT WARRAS: You mention your high school days, and you and your mom moved here to Milwaukee, you went to Solomon Juneau High School. How did you get the bug? What was it about — like you say, it wasn’t necessarily space exploration at that time, do you remember something that sparked you?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, yeah, it was during the World War II days. I went to Juneau High from ’42 to ’46, and during that time, towards the end of my high school, I read about the German development of the V-2 weapon and everything like that. And, as a matter of fact, I think sometime in that period there was a rocket engine that was on display in Milwaukee that I went down to see. And then I wrote — I read an interesting article by Dr. Goddard on the development of the liquid fuel rocket engine and how it could go into space or, you know, for high altitudes at that time. And for some reason, I don’t know why, I was very much interested in that. And, as a matter of fact, as I approached graduation, I wrote to the American Rocket Society, I said, “I’d like to be a rocket engineer. Can you give me some advice of how to prepare for that?”
And they wrote back a very nice letter, as a matter of fact, gave me some advice, but towards the end it said the best thing to do is to get a good education. And they recommended MIT or Caltech or something like that.
And I grew up rather poor, we lived in a one-room apartment. My father had died when I was young, and my mother just existed on a secretary’s salary, and so I couldn’t go anyplace. And the Navy had bailed me out, fortunately, just before I was to graduate. The Navy — had a recruiter over and they were talking about a program about developing more Navy pilots because a lot of the naval aviators left the service after the end of the war and they were so many short. And that’s how my education started.
SCOTT WARRAS: President Kennedy, that was such a catalyzing speech. A moment, a few sentences that served as a catalyst to what was to come. What did it do for you when you heard him say, “This is our mission and we’re going to do it by the end of the decade”?
JAMES LOVELL: Yeah, I was quite surprised. Of course, the space program had been going on with Mercury, and things like that, and — but suddenly, you know, saying that this is our goal, and at the time when we were just developing Mercury, it was quite a step forward.
And, of course, you have to remember that I was one of the selectees for the Mercury program way back in, I think, 1958. And I went to Albuquerque for the physical for the Mercury for NASA, along with John Glenn, and Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, and I was the only guy to flunk the — flunk the physical. So, I — you know, I was highly disappointed not to get in the program at that time. And so when I heard President Kennedy’s announcement about the objective, you know, I felt rather sad for myself, I guess.
SCOTT WARRAS: How did you flunk the test? What did they get you on, Jim?
JAMES LOVELL: I had what was known as a high bilirubin, and some sort of a pigment in your blood, which sometimes happens if you — you know, during birth or something of this nature. Anyway, it never affected me, and I, you know, flew as a Navy aviator for a long time.
And so I was disappointed, but I think that the doctors down at Albuquerque which did the physical, I think they had to flunk somebody because they couldn’t — they couldn’t pass all 32 of us and say everybody is ready to go and, you know, because then the NASA officials would get kind of suspicious. So, I was the — I was the fall guy.
SCOTT WARRAS: You talk about those earlier years of the success, the failures: the one step forward, two steps back; two steps forward, one step back, just that incremental progress and the fortitude of so many men and women who were looking at something much bigger. How do you describe what was happening within the program, within the people of the program? Because there were times where you could have pulled the plug and said, look, enough is enough, but it forged ahead.
JAMES LOVELL: Well, you have to look at the program itself. This is a program of exploring in space. This is something entirely — you know, it was thought of for years and years in science fiction and things like that, but suddenly the door opened up and here’s what we’re going to do. So, it had a natural attraction, and especially with young people, about something they had read about and suddenly here it is. And so — and also, the development of the devices, of the spacecraft, and the structure, communications, and everything like that was such that it felt back also in the private sector. So it was a natural thing to do as something that has a prestige thing for the country, and it also supported a lot of the — a lot of the people and the growth of the country without thinking about going into space, just the communications and the new — bunch of various things, the new medicines that were being developed. So, it had an overall objective at that particular time.
SCOTT WARRAS: That is one of the things that I don’t know how many people realize — I don’t even know that I fully can comprehend — how much America and how much the world benefitted from NASA, benefitted from the space program. Thinking about all of the different innovations, the technology, the science that has been applied to other facets of our life, things that were learned through the space program that are now everyday elements in non-space exploration. So much — so much was gained from that program, and I don’t know that a lot of people recognize that.
JAMES LOVELL: Well, computer technology —
SCOTT WARRAS: Right.
JAMES LOVELL: — has expanded tremendously. Everybody uses computer technology in some means, some manner. And offshoots of that, you know, cell phones and TVs and things of this nature that grew up that in that particular period, you know, had some direct relationship to our space activities.
SCOTT WARRAS: Walk me down memory lane as it pertains to Gemini 7 and 12 and those precursors for the eventual Apollo missions. What was it about the Gemini program and your experiences there that prepared you for those Apollo missions?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, Gemini was designed, and when I finally got in the program, to check out a lot of aspects of going to the moon. And so what Gemini’s missions were, were to do things that would have to be done or expected to be done on a lunar voyage.
Gemini 7 was a two-week mission. That’s about the total length of time that we’d need to go to the moon and back again. And so Frank Borman and I spent two weeks together orbiting the earth to see what effect it would have on the human body. We were wired up so that the doctors on the ground could, you know, read our vitals. We, ourselves, looked to see how we could spend two weeks in a thing that’s smaller than a Volkswagen. I have to tell you, that was a real trial. And then Gemini 12 was, as far as I’m concerned, was actually an offshoot of not going to the moon, but how can you do things outside a spacecraft, that means working outside. Several Gemini flights before that had tried to go outside of the spacecraft to do various functions and found out that they all forgot Newton’s third law of motion: to every action, there is an opposite an equal reaction. And when they would try to touch the spacecraft, it would expel or push them away, I mean, the reaction. And so we finally had overcome that in our training by using a swimming pool. And that’s how things got started in space today where the Johnson Space Center has a huge pool where they work out — work on it in the water before they — before they go up on the International Space Station.
SCOTT WARRAS: We move ahead then, Apollo 8, 1968, you and the crew, one of three of the first humans to fly to and orbit the moon. The ramp up to that, I would ask this of every one of your missions: Do nerves still play a role?
JAMES LOVELL: Yeah, nerves always play a role, especially when you’re doing something that’s so unusual, but you have to remember that we were being trained and more trained to overcome those. I was a navigator on Apollo 8, so I got to know the communication systems and the navigation systems very well, and that gave me confidence that what we were going to try to do, we’re actually going to do.
And, you know, Apollo 8 had some international significance because we had heard that the Russians were going to try to put a man or men around the moon in December 1968. Now, Apollo 8 was going to be an earth orbital flight to test out the lunar module, but the lunar module was delayed from the manufacturer. So really a great decision was made to make Apollo 8 go to the moon and try to, number one, beat the Russians to go around the moon.
But, to me, it was more like a Lewis and Clark expedition. We were going to see for the first time the far side of the moon, the side that mankind could never have seen because it always keeps itself away from the earth. And so I was very much excited, and this was a natural for me.
SCOTT WARRAS: How would you describe what you saw when you were up there, the far side of the moon?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, of course, the greatest sight when we — first sight, as far as we burned into the moon — around the moon, I should say, in the darkness. So we didn’t see the far side right away, it was all dark. And then all of a sudden, the sun came around and put light onto the far side. And as we slipped around, then we could finally see the earth come up, the earth coming up some 240,000 miles away. And, you know, the sight was very significant. And I mentioned this many times, but I could put my thumb up to the window and completely hide the earth. Now, you have to think about that a little bit. Everything that I’d ever known, people, millions of people that are on the earth, oceans, you know, deserts, mountains. Everything was behind my thumb. And I wanted to know, “How do I fit in?”
And then, of course, I think — and I’ve mentioned this many times, I suddenly remembered that old saying that, “I hope to go to heaven when I die,” but in reality, I thought, “I went to heaven when I was born.” Because I arrived on a planet of a large size to have the gravity to contain water and an atmosphere, the very essentials for life. And I felt also that I arrived on a planet that was orbiting a star at just the right distance: not too far to be too cold or in too close to be too hot, but just at the right distance so that this planet absorbed the sun’s energy and energy was what started life to evolve.
SCOTT WARRAS: The feeling of how incredibly small we are as a race, as a planet, I can only imagine it’s just such a contrast in size and scope of who we really are.
JAMES LOVELL: Well, that’s true, when you get away from the earth as far as we were, some 240,000 miles, it becomes well known that, you know, we’re not alone here, because, you know, in the universe, there’s got to be other planets like earth orbiting stars at just the right distance and formulating or to start life like this. So, there’s got to be other civilizations out there in the universe.
SCOTT WARRAS: Let’s turn ahead now to the mission, Apollo 13. You launch on April 11th, can you just spend a couple moments, Jim, walking us through those first couple days and then up to the explosion?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, if you were suspicious or superstitious, I should say, then having a spacecraft with the name of 13 might give you some time to really think about it. As a matter of fact, there were certain signs prior to the launch and during the launch that indicated that there was something that, you know, was perhaps wrong here. First of all, the crew was exposed to the measles before the flight, and just a couple days before launch, we had to replace Ken Mattingly with Jack Swigert, so there was a change there. And then on the — we launched at 13:13 Central Standard Time, which we didn’t really think about it at the time, but as you look back it now, another little indication. And then on the way out to the moon, we lost a center engine of our second stage and put down — it just shut off early, for some reason. And then that gave us a thought — and I told the crew, I said, “Hey, there’s our problem on 13, and now we were able to get over that problem, so everything should be fine from now on.” And, of course, that wasn’t the case.
SCOTT WARRAS: Take us into the module and walk us through the moment of that explosion, how you started learning what had happened, and what was now going to have to happen moving forward.
JAMES LOVELL: Well, it was about two days out, April 13th, that the explosion occurred.
SCOTT WARRAS: Another 13.
JAMES LOVELL: Another 13. Which by the way, as an aside, had the explosion occurred earlier just after we committed ourselves on a high rate of speed to go to the moon, we — the lunar module, which we’d have to use to get home, we had to go all the way around the moon and come back again, we’d have run out of supplies, oxygen, and things like that prior to get home. And if the explosion occurred after we had gone into lunar orbit or, heaven forbid, on the lunar surface, well, we’d never have left the moon from then on. We’d have been — we’d have been captured by the moon and that would have been the end of it. So, the explosion occurred just at the right time that allowed a safe recovery.
SCOTT WARRAS: What did you feel — what was the interplay between you and Fred Haise and Jack Swigert as that explosion happened and you realized what you now had to overcome?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, the three of us — I’ve — to start out with, we were — Haise and I were in the lunar module and we had just completed a TV program, which was sent down to the earth — which by the way, the earth related to the three networks and none of them carried it. Because after all, this was the 5th flight of Apollo to go to the moon; the third landing, and people were getting bored back home. You know, “This again?” And so we didn’t know that, of course.
And the explosion occurred, and I was on my way down into the command module. I looked at Fred Haise still in the lunar module, I could tell from his expression he had no idea. And I looked down at Jack Swigert, and his eyes were as wide as saucers, and I knew that he didn’t have any idea. And when I got down into the command module, I saw a light, a warning light, on that we had lost our — two out of three fuel cells. And they develop electrical power, so I knew right then that we were in serious, serious trouble.
And when I looked out the window and saw escaping at a high rate of speed a gaseous substance and determined that was the oxygen leaving our tanks — one of them was already empty, and the other one was still — was damaged and it was leaking oxygen, I knew that the only course was the lunar module to see if we could someway, somehow use it as a lifeboat to get home.
SCOTT WARRAS: One of the most iconic, I will say, phrases in American history, “Houston, we have a problem.” Now, I say it that way because in the movie — and I want to get your thoughts on the movie here in just a moment — but the way that that line was delivered by Tom Hanks in the movie Apollo 13 wasn’t necessarily how it actually played out at the time. Can you dispel that myth for us?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, the way I remember it, it was — first of all, when the explosion occurred, Swigert, Jack Swigert, who said to the communicator at mission control, “Houston, we have a problem here.” Now, I was coming down into the command module, and the CAPCOM at mission control said, “Say it again, please.” He didn’t hear Jack right away. And then I said, “Houston, we have a problem. We have a Main B Bus undervolt.” And that’s how they got the word that prompted the expression, which I guess got a life of its own and has been known to use by just about everybody, everyplace.
SCOTT WARRAS: I do have to ask, Jim, when you hear that phrase and it is applied to, I don’t know, any number of other applications in life, do you chuckle? Do you role your eyes? Do you think, “Oh, gosh, there it is again”?
JAMES LOVELL: Should have corporate — copyrighted it, I should say.
SCOTT WARRAS: Yes, you should have. You could be making — every time somebody says it, Jim, you could be going to the bank.
JAMES LOVELL: Yeah. Yeah, it sure has a life of its own.
SCOTT WARRAS: The most fascinating element — well, there’s a lot of fascinating elements — is the work that you and Haise and Swigert did up there. And the true teamwork then on the ground of troubleshooting and taking it step by step. And I remember reading a comment you made at some point along the way about you didn’t really become overwhelmed by the — by the gravity of the situation, you had to take it step by step. And I think that’s also, by the way, a great life lesson.
JAMES LOVELL: Well, that’s true. You know, the team had to have a positive attitude. Here we are, we didn’t know exactly what went wrong, first of all, how — how dangerous we were or — and suddenly as, you know, things started to unfold and got worse and worse, it got darker and darker in our thoughts. And then we had to go into the lunar module, of course, to use as a lifeboat. Then we understood that the only way that we’re going to survive this whole thing is work together and work with the ground control people, mission control, and look at what we have to do to get home, and see if the lunar module was sufficient with materials and engine fuel, things like that, to do it. And then keep on going.
Of course, the classic example was the buildup of carbon dioxide in the lunar module, because it was designed for only two people for two days and here we were three people for four days. And, of course, we’re all exhaling carbon dioxide, so now we’re building up more and more.
SCOTT WARRAS: Apollo 13, the film, was that accurate? And I know you played a key role in the production of that and guiding it along the way, for people who have seen it or maybe young, young people who are maybe now seeing it for the first time, how accurate was that movie to what you guys experienced?
JAMES LOVELL: It was very accurate. It followed the book very closely, which we were very happy about. There was certain artistic licenses that were taken only to enhance the story itself, which, you know, you couldn’t do without some of that. But other than that, the story and the movie was true, you know, redone of the actual flight.
SCOTT WARRAS: The book, of course, Lost Moon, the story that you co-wrote with journalist Jeffrey Kluger back in 1994, and highly recommend that.
What was your most scared moment up there during that 13 mission? When were you most fearful?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, that’s hard to tell because I think I had a — I had, you know, an apprehension from the time the explosion occurred time to the time I landed on the water. But I put aside being afraid, and I think the other two guys did, too. They took the problems one at a time, and so we were very successful in working with mission control and very fortunate we had communications with them to overcome various things that we had to do.
SCOTT WARRAS: How much disappointment did you have from not being able to step foot on the moon?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, when we safely got back and on the ground, I was disappointed for awhile because I didn’t land on the moon. And then it dawned on me that I was going to be, what, the fifth man to be on the moon. And actually the flight was an enhancement to NASA, I mean, it was almost like it was planned to be there, because people were getting bored with going to the moon. As I had mentioned, we were the 5th flight to land, and it wasn’t being covered by the news media as the other flights had done. And suddenly when the accident occurred, everybody, you know, perked up their ears and kind of glued to the television set and things like that and really brought back what NASA can do and what we’re doing in the space program. So, in some aspects, I think that Apollo 13 played a better — bigger role in our Apollo program then maybe some of the future flights that landed.
SCOTT WARRAS: Let’s turn ahead now to the present time. First, when you heard that the shuttle program would be discontinued, and this is about in 2011, was that a disappointment to you? Was that the right decision? Was that the wrong decision? And what did you make of that?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, I was hoping that once we had our foot into the space period, that we would keep going. And so it was various ups and downs in the shuttle program, and when they were in the down period, I felt kind of bad about it, but I felt that was a way to go.
If you notice that we — from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, we inched our way farther and farther away from the earth to starting exploring space, and suddenly the shuttle program put us back into exploring the earth and — by orbiting the earth. But, you know, orbiting the earth and looking back at the earth can offer a lot of good things for the people because we can examine the earth as we do that and get the results back to improve the life on the earth.
SCOTT WARRAS: You know, and we have seen now, I guess since 2011, private industry, enterprising explorers from the private sector it would appear, taking up the mantel to explore and potentially take private citizens up into space and — and beyond the moon. Do you welcome that? Let me ask — let me ask it this way: If someone offered you a ticket tomorrow, James Lovell, to head back up into space to go to the moon, maybe beyond, would you buy that ticket?
JAMES LOVELL: You’re talking to somebody who is 92 years old. You know, yeah, it would be very nice if I was 40, and even then I would look very closely at how they’re going to go and where they’re going to go. Earth orbit is one thing, going to the moon is something else, you know, then going farther than that. And I already have the honor of having the highest of altitude in the aerospace industry since I missed slowing down going around the moon. I went past the moon and then high in earth orbit to go back to the earth.
SCOTT WARRAS: Do you welcome these private ventures when it comes to exploration right now in our time?
JAMES LOVELL: First, I thought that was kind of silly. I mean, they were using monies that they got, not from earth’s — not from spaceflights or space technology, they were using monies that they had gotten otherwise. And it cost an awful lot. So, you know, any kind of a venture like Space X, I always thought that, you know, they would have an idea, they would build a — they’d get people to be involved, they start a company, people would throw money into it. And then they would get a product, and the product looked pretty good, but then they had to sell the product. Because, normally in our lifestyle here in the United States, you know, companies had to make a profit because they had stockholders and things like that. And I didn’t see where Space X would have, you know, any stock that they — or, you know, could make a profit at this thing. And, today, I really don’t know whether they aren’t making a profit. Now what they’re trying to do is just to fly something to high altitudes so the passengers can be called astronauts and come down again. And, you know, that — I think Space X is doing that and several other people are trying that.
SCOTT WARRAS: You’ve been very generous and kind with your time. I have one more question for you: During that mission, during that Apollo 13 mission, what the three of you did and the men on the ground did to bring you back and bring you back safely, so many people drew inspiration from that. At this time, this very unique time in all of our lives and in our history, this pandemic, what would you say to people that are looking for something, some inspiration, and looking to someone to inspire them?
JAMES LOVELL: Well, I look at this two ways. First of all, I’ve met many people who were very successful in life, because I — during my space activities, I’ve given them inspiration to go ahead and do other things and made them very successful. So that gives me really a private sense of satisfaction to know that what I had done in space was also given other people inspiration to do things they wanted to do. And now, of course, I get young people who want to go into the space program, and, you know, it’s kind of hard to do, but I try to inspire them to regardless of whether you want to become an astronaut, or you want to be a successful engineer or, you know, a publisher or anything like that, you do your best. Think — think positive to go ahead and follow your dreams, because, you know, that’s essentially what I did. I was interested in rockets and things like that, and, suddenly, you know, for some reason the door opened up and I was able to follow my inspiration.
