re: Apollo 13 commander dies at 97

Literally one of America's best.

He was the last survivor of Apollo 8, the first mission to the moon. They circled around the backside of the moon, and took the famous Earthrise photo.

When they came out frome behind the moon, there was the "pale blue dot".

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Does anyone know why NASA didn’t give these guys another shot at the moon on a later flight?

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Lovell retired, Haise was slated to command Apollo 19 which was canceled, and Swigert was slated to fly as part of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project but got kicked off due to his role in the Apollo 15 stamp scandal.

Hayes was the commander of the Enterprise when they did the first test flight launch from the 747. Saw him years ago at Stennis. He said it was one of the smoothest flying aircraft he'd piloted.

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Oh, no!

Not Tom Hanks!!

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Pedophiles don't belong in this thread.

A great American.

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Pedophiles don't belong in this thread.

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Then why are you here?

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Meh. The black female engineers behind the scenes were the true heroes.

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There actually was one…

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Overview LINK Katherine Johnson, a Black woman and mathematician, played a crucial role in the Apollo program, including the Apollo 11 moon landing. She was celebrated for her exceptional skills in calculating trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for various NASA missions, including the Mercury and Apollo programs. Johnson's work was essential for the success of the Apollo missions. Specifically, she calculated the trajectory for the Apollo 11 mission, which successfully landed humans on the Moon. Her expertise was also vital for Project Mercury, including the flights of Alan Shepard (first American in space) and John Glenn (first American to orbit Earth). She also worked on plans for a human mission to Mars.

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Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book “The Right Stuff” is an excellent read on Project Mercury and the first seven astronauts leading to the Apollo program, and aircraft test pilots especially Chuck Yeager, who was not selected for astronaut training because he was not a college graduate, despite being one of the greatest natural pilots who ever flew.

“ In the foreword to a new edition, published in 1983 when the film adaptation was released, Wolfe wrote that his "book grew out of some ordinary curiosity" about what "makes a man willing to sit up on top of an enormous Roman candle... and wait for someone to light the fuse.”

Great men all, God Speed Captain Lovell.

Man, these guys were heroes. Clean cut, tough and fearless. They were the hope of America that everybody admired. Guys that achieved something that had never been done before! Everybody remembers where they were during these Apollo missions. Can anybody today name a single astronaut?

When these guys pass away, It’s the passing of a link to a big era of our history.

The Apollo 13 film is already well-known, but I also recommend HBO's From the Earth to the Moon.

It covers the U.S. manned spaceflight program through Apollo 17, focusing heavily on Apollo. It is probably the best Hollywood treatment of the subject, with all due respect to The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 films. It is to Apollo 13 what Band of Brothers was to SPR.

ETA: RIP Shaky