Jim Lovell on 50 years since Apollo 13
Astronaut Jim Lovell recounts Apollo 13 launch 50 years later.
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Fifty years ago, Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell heard a “bang-whump-shudder” that immediately changed the character of his crew’s mission. The chance to stand on the lunar surface disappeared into the vacuum of outer space along with the oxygen hemorrhaging from the spacecraft.
The service module lost fuel, electrical systems failed, and the commander’s new goal became simply returning home. At the time of the accident – 10:05 p.m. EST, April 13, 1970 – that goal hardly seemed realistic.
COVID-19 did not descend suddenly upon the United States like the explosion that crippled the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Yet the response of Lovell’s crew and of the experts in Mission Control, and their ability to work together, offers us lessons and inspiration as our nation struggles against the coronavirus pandemic and its fallout.
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“As long as we were still breathing, we were going to go as long as possible,” Lovell told me. “As we solved one problem after another, the percentages [of surviving] went up until at splashdown it became 100 percent again.”
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“You had to be objective and positive in your thinking,” the Eagle Scout and Naval Academy graduate elaborated. “Not looking at your hands wishing for some miracle to happen. If we’d all gotten in a fetal position to wait for a miracle, we’d still be up there.”
Importantly, Lovell set the tone inside the spacecraft. He, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert would proceed step by step. They’d solve a problem and then address the next one. They faced and overcame a veritable meteor shower of challenges for nearly four straight days while isolated and cold inside a tiny bubble of oxygen and light between Earth and Moon. Their plight and long odds grabbed the world’s attention; their small victories and undaunted determination earned its respect.
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Just as the Apollo 13 crew relied on their team members back on Earth, we now rely on civic, public health and medical leaders to set the tone for our collective response to COVID-19. That tone and direction seemed inconsistent and uncertain at first but now consensus has developed. What feels like a rare national unity has emerged – not without exception, of course – but we are sensing progress after gradually finding trust in our experts and each other.
“You’ve got to rely on other people,” Lovell explained. “You’ve got to trust each other to do the right thing; push the right buttons. You had to have trust that the control team in Houston knew what they were doing and wouldn’t get you in trouble!”
Today, we’re trusting that the leaders of our society and its systems understand the stakes and make the right choices. To Jim Lovell’s point, our return to some degree of normalcy in 2020 – like his return to home in 1970 – relies on each of us doing our duty. For some, that may be delivering food, making personal protective equipment or caring for the ill. For many, duty may simply mean isolating at home. Millions of people are relying on their neighbors to do the right thing. If we want to recover quickly, it’s up to each of us.
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“Thirteen was an outstanding success in the way people reacted to a crisis and the leadership that was shown and the initiative that was produced,” Lovell reflected decades after his craft splashed down, its unprecedented ordeal finished at last. “It was a triumph in that area ... I couldn’t think of a better thing to come through to show what we can do if we put our minds to it.”
Fifty years from now, let’s hope we can say the same about America’s response to COVID-19.
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