Lovell

In 1968 on December 21, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders carried out the first Apollo mission which orbited the Moon.

Lovell and crewmates Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were in grave peril.

As warning signals lit up the cabin of their command module – and instrument panels at NASA’s mission control in Houston, Texas – Lovell uttered a sentence that would reverberate through history.

By using the lunar module as a temporary lifeboat, Lovell and his crew were able to slingshot around the moon and limp back to Earth.

Neither Jim Lovell nor Fred Haise would ever walk on the moon.

“Years later when we decided to write a book about the story of Apollo 13 – I got the feeling that yes, the flight was a failure,” Lovell said. “But in another aspect it was a triumph in how people can take an almost certain catastrophe – working together, figuring out solutions to crisis that we didn’t plan for or train for and get this spacecraft back home.”

Lovell hopes his story and experiences inspire a new generation of explorers.

That evening, the astronauts—Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders—held a live broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and moon as seen from their spacecraft.

On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to witness the Earth rising above the moon's barren surface.

On December 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the moon.