BONUS PODCAST - MB Talks To Astronaut Jim Lovell On The 50th Anniversary Of Apollo 13

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Barry Shoe. Captain Lovell, I would first like
to talk about Apollo thirteen and everything related to that,
and then from there, I'd like to get into your background,
your childhood, your life leading up to that, and your
professional and personal life since then. So if we could
start with Apollo thirteen, here we are fifty years later,

(00:22):
and how would you have expected before that mission took off?
How would you have expected that it would be remembered
by history.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Only the way all the other flights that were successful
would have been displayed by this time. Of course, Polo
one that I mean that landed on the moon, Paul Leven,
I should say, was very instrumental. But you know how
many people remember Pablo fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen as

(00:55):
other than successful landings on the moon.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, it's interesting, and I guess we can go straight
to that. You know, it's it's been referred to as
the successful failure man over Machine, and many people have
suggested that the fact that there were so many problems
and that it was put at risk really showed America, Hey,
this isn't this isn't a routine thing. This is really dangerous.

(01:24):
So it's almost as if in some ways, whether it
was God's destiny or his choice or or luck, it
was it is as if it was good that this happened. Well,
it was.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Good in some respects because by the time of thirteen
the flew this was the fifth Apollo flight to the Moon,
and naturally people started to get complacent about our pollow program.
We had a successfully landed on Apollo eleven. We repeated
that on Apollo twelve, follow thirteen was going to make

(01:58):
a landing to different in place. But to the average
person that that wasn't not significant. They didn't realize how
we planned to do our exploration. So when the explosion occurred,
suddenly the people of the US and and of course
of the Earth had a new interest in our space program. Hey,

(02:21):
something is wrong, and can NASA get these guys back?
Is or what's happening? And so drove their attention the
fact that if there's good leadership and teamwork and an initiative,
see if that can happen to recover thirteen.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
I'd like to play the audio of your transmission telling
Houston that we've had a problem, and then have you
respond go ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Of them, Okay, we had a problem here fine, man,
go ahead. We've had a hardware race. I don't know
what it was. You've got to be both footable. You
see an ac bus under vault there guiding or eCOM Negatively,
I believe the crew reported it, we gotta be undervolt

(03:12):
We may have had an inspiantation.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Pron fin er. What's going through your mind at that point?

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Well, essentially what went through my mind at that particular
time was what happened? What is really going wrong? And
how does that affect the flight?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
What was your worst fear at that moment.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
I didn't have a worse fear that this was a
disastrous I had a fear that how can we recover
from this particular problem? Is it serious or not? And
it takes a little time for the you know, the
brain to function and to figure out what we're going

(03:58):
And of course it's has that occurred. Then I saw
that we lost two out of two out of the
three fuel cells, which meant that most of electricity was
going to be gone. And then, of course, as time
went on, as we looked around to find out what
the situation was, and I examined the instrument panel and

(04:19):
I finally ambered my way over to the window, and
when I looked out the window and saw gas is
gas escaping at a highrate of speed from the room
of my spacecraft. And then going back and look at
the instrument panel and seeing that the gages on my
two oxygen tanks one was empty and one I could

(04:39):
see the needles had to go down. Then the thoughts
on my brain said, hey, this is really really serious.
The landing is off and can we get home because
the command module is now dying.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
So in the movie, there's sort of two competing emotions
as Tom Hanks portrays you, and one of them is
are we going to get home alive to see our
families again? And the other is we're not going to
get to walk on the moon? Which of those was
of those two was more powerful at that moment to you?

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Actually, the first one was more powerful. Walking on the moon,
of course, was my ambition and everything like that, But
then what is the seriousness of trying to get back
home again? And can we And so the recovery was
much more important to me than not walking on the moon.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
I watched the movie with my boys who are thirteen
and fourteen, and my wife this weekend, and my younger
son said, what's the big deal? You know, they're not
going to go to the moon. They need to be
worried about coming back. And I tried to explain the
drive for an astronaut to get out, walk on the moon,
you know, conquer this frontier, learn, share knowledge, explore is

(06:06):
something the average person doesn't have. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well? Actually, yeah, that was my drive ever since I
got in the program, because even long before that I
was interested in space flights and things of this nature.
And so you know, this was my fourth flight, my
second time to the moon, and of course it was
a big, big disappointment when the explosion occurred, and not

(06:34):
knowing really what our future was going to be.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
What was the moment Captain Lovell, upon your return that
you realized, you know what, we may just make it
out of here.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, as we kept on doing various things and in
sacrifice or getting over one crisis after another, slowly our
chances of getting home appeared to be greater and greater.
And this was our major concern right now, can we
salvage what we have? Can't we get back home? And

(07:10):
they not landing on the moon had left my memory.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
So when you splash down and you know, you see
that they're there to recover you. What's going through your
mind at that point, well.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
A great sense of relief. I mean I looked at
my two companions and I said, I think we've made it.
And of course we didn't think that way until actually
the spacecraft hit the water, and didn't continue to think
and because we were worried about the heat shield all
the time on the final flight through the atmosphere.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Can you explain that heat shield because I've tried to
understand it, and there's lots of reference to that for
the average non scientist like me. What is that?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, the heat heil is merely a material that is
in the rare end of the spacecraft, the blunt end
of the end that goes that is the hits the atmosphere,
and it is so designed that it flakes off the atmosphere,
of course, is at a high rate of speed, is

(08:22):
a tremendous heat build up, and the heat shield slowly
burns off and and of course it's such thickness that
as it goes through the atmosphere, we just burned the
top off. He gets thinner and thinner. It's a better
way than metal because metal would just heat up, and
then the heat would transfer into the TiAl of the spacecraft,

(08:45):
which you couldn't want. But heat shield prevents the heat
from going into the spacecraft because it merely flakes off
piece by piece as it goes through the atmosphere.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
President Nixon said in his remarks, I guess upon your
return when they came to Hawaii, he said that when
he spoke to you, you said I'm sorry, and he said,
don't you say that, because what you've done is heroic
and admirable. Did you feel did you feel in some
sense that you had failed and you needed to say that,

(09:19):
or was that just what's going through your mind when
you speak to the president?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Well, our job was to land on the moon, and
we didn't do it. Consequently, as a military guy, I
had a report to the commander in chief and said,
we tried, we failed, and I was very happy when
the President said, don't worry. You have succeeded in other ways.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, and he says, yes exactly. And I think, looking back,
wouldn't you agree that renewed a passion and an interest
among Americans and humanity for space that has carried us
to today.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's true. I think that flight at thirteen at that
particular time, was in some respects very important. Landing on
the moon, of course, was important, at least for me.
But what it didn't do was the fact that it
regenerated the interest of now people all over the world.
As a matter of fact, on exploration, I get letters

(10:24):
even today from people who followed those programs through and
thirteen generated their interest to do other things that like
in engineering or science and things of this nature.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
The president said. President Nixon said in his speech that
day that this was the most exciting day of his
life meeting you guys, you know, receiving you that you
were alive, that you had survived, and that it was
even more important to him than the day he was
elected president. It's pretty powerful.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Well, it was very very powerful. I think he mentioned
that really just at the time that we all met, so,
I mean, and I appreciated his comments.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Let's talk about being a father and having to split
your loyalties and having to make the sacrifice of leaving
the family, as you know you had to do many
times to train and things like that, and leaving the
family knowing of the dangers. How hard was that?

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Well, that game, naturally you know, I was a military
officer and during the war PIDs, you know, people left
their families for some period of time. So what I
did was to talk to the family that here was
my job. But when you really look at it, I
was in my four flights. I had only been gone

(11:49):
a little while. I think Gemany seven. I was going
for what two weeks a week something like that. But
so it was something that the being a military family
understood what their father was going to do.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Your son, Jeff, told me a story Captain Lovell that
you were at the press conference and afterward and you
were asked if you would ever go back to space,
and you look like you were about to say yes,
and Marilyn, your bride, gave the thumbs down from the crowd.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Is that true truth? I We were a press conference
after about thirteen and one of the reporters asked, you know,
because you didn't make it, and I understand that they
would give you another chance. I said, are you going
to ask for another chance to go to the road?
And before I could take and the massive management, of course,

(12:43):
was just behind me, this would be a good idea
to try to get another flight, And then I looked
out in the audience, and there was a hand that
went up with a thumb down and it was my wife,
and I said, no, I think this is my last flight.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
I asked your son Jeff to describe Marilyn, your bride,
and he said, she's the rock of the family. You know,
while he's doing all these difficult things, she has to
make sure the bills are getting paid, that we're leaving,
that we're going to school. And he said, the thing
I'm most proud of is that we had a normal
life despite the fact that our dad did not have

(13:17):
a normal job.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
And I'm happy for that too, because you know, you
need a family that will put we'll support you whatever
type of job you're doing, and if the job requires
long periods of being away. And yet the people understood why,
and the kids all apply themselves, helping their mother get

(13:42):
things through and going to school and things like that
while I was, you know, spent a lot of time training.
Then that's the kind of family to have.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
So you become nationally famous as Commander Jim Lovell after this,
and you stay on and don't retire until now eighteen
seventy three. How did you spend your time from when
you returned until you left NASA and the Navy in
seventy three.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well, NASA by that time, of course, I was now
working to the future of NASA, which was the program
of the warring well you know the Well you're talking
to somebody who's eighty years old. But it was the

(14:30):
Shuttle program, that's right, the Shuttle program. And I was
involved in designing the instraram panels and all that for
the Shuttle. During that period of time.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
I have heard that the Navy wanted you to stay
on and become an admiral.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Well, I worked at it very closely, and the Navy
was more than willing to take me back. Yeah, of
course I never left the ate with the in the
space program. It is only essentially short duty for me,
and they wanted me to come back in. They'd be
more than happy to do, you know, give me a

(15:12):
good assignment. But I had made a mistake. Also after
that last night, I went to Harvard the management program,
and I spent a year training in management for a year,
and suddenly dawned on me that you know, if I
stayed in the Navy and I came up for promotion

(15:34):
along with other people that were in the Navy, and
they would look at the guys that were short see
duty and short duty and involved in wars and things
like that, or would they look at me that had
spent his time in the space program? Who would I select?
And I said, no, they wouldn't slick me, because you know,

(15:55):
those other people have a lot more training on what
the Navy's supposed to be doing. And consequently, and suddenly
I decided that perhaps, you know, retiring at the time
I did, and kind of going into the private site,
there was the way to go.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
I'm fascinated by what I've learned Captain Lovell, about how
you got into the Naval Academy, if we could take
that step by step as I understand it, the Navy
came to your high school and gave a speech about
wanting naval aviators. So you started at school in Wisconsin.
Can you talk about that?

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, my father died when I was young. My mother
was a secretary. We didn't have any money and close
to graduating from high school. Before that, I applied from
the Naval Academy because my uncle who was a Naval
Academy graduate, and I thought I could follow him, and
you get sort of a free education at least, and

(16:54):
what I applied for it I came out to be
third holder. That was meant that there was no way
I was going to go. Well, it was close to
graduation when the Navy had a program called the Holloway
Program because the Navy found itself short of naval aviators
after World War Two and suddenly they needed aviators. So

(17:15):
they thought this program would take high school graduates who
wanted to go into the Navy. They would give them
two years of college, set them down to flight training,
get their wings, and then spend about six months or
a year out with the Navy and a squadron, and
then send them back to their last two years of college.
So consequently the program would give a person of a

(17:39):
college education and also a job at permanent job in
the Navy as a naval aviator. It was a great program.
I couldn't believe when I found out about it. I
applied immediately, was accepted, and then I was also a
school of your choice. So I picked Wisconsin, the University

(18:03):
of Wisconsin, since I was in Milwaukee, and I applied
to a mechanical engineering course because you had to take
something in science or engineering. I went there for two years,
and the Navy didn't set me down Pensacola for my
begin flight training. But while I was at the University

(18:25):
of Wisconsin, my mother called up and said, look at
some we don't know how long these programs last. It
might turn out that the Navy suddenly gets enough naval
aviators and they just shut down the program. Why don't
you try one more time for the Naval Academy. Oh
I did. While I was at Wisconsin. I tried one

(18:45):
more time. This time the answer came back that I
was first all of it. And when I got that,
I realized that my chances were almost zero. So I
actually went down to the Pensacola to start of aviation,
and the first thing we did was ground school. Halfway
through ground school, I got a word from the Navy

(19:07):
department that if I was still interested in going to
the Naval Academy, if we go up to Annapolis as
soon as possible. While I was in a quandary because
I've already had two years of college, I already was
in that program that I always wanted to be. Anyway,
I'd have a job, I'd be a naval lavier. Why

(19:28):
would I want to go back to the Naval Academy
and start all over again. And so I was about
ready to say no when the commander of the Ground
School pulled me aside and he says, son, you want
to make Navy your career. And I said, yes, sir,

(19:49):
he said, and you want to get a full education, yes, sir,
and get yourself back to the Naval Academy and start
and right from scratch. And so that's what I did,
which was very very fortunate. I got my education, I
got back into aviation. I went through aviation, then went
into test pilot training and became a test pilot. About

(20:14):
that time, NASA needed test pilots for the Mercury program,
and that whole thing started there.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Now, as I understand it, because you were already a midshipman.
You showed up at the Naval Academy in a midshipman's
uniform and they didn't know what to make of this.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
That's right. We were called Aviation midship and the Holloway Program,
and of course that's the un clothes I had. I
went right from Petsacola right to Annapolis. I walked in
and said reporting and I said, what are you? I said,
I'm an aviation midshipman. I said, no, all the midshipmen
are here at Annapolis, and they were quite worried. So

(20:56):
they called up few purs and went on these and
so briefers had to tell them about the aviation program,
the bit UH, and they called the Holloway program, And
so I had to.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Start all over. They decommissioned you. Did they decommission you
and start you all over?

Speaker 2 (21:15):
That's right? Yes, I was an aviation midshipmen, and so
they swore me out as a big shimen as a
civilian again, and then the next day they swore me
back in as a bit shiven.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
So, as I understand it, you go to flight training
that sends you the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi
where you get your wings, THENTO Sunny Vale, and then
I guess you go to the US Shangri La in
the Sea of Japan. Is that right?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Last? Right? When I got my wings, I reported to
a squadron called VC or. Actually this squadron was designed
to train UH night fighter pilots because during the Wars
they fought out that the aircraft carriers now needed nightfly
which in the during World War Two they were basically

(22:04):
weapons for day work. And so they developed the knife
fighter teams about five officers, four airplanes and about thirty
enlisted and would send them out on ships. And I
got into a team Jig. I got trained flamed airplanes,

(22:28):
the Panchees, and the reported on on the Shangla and
made a cruise out to the far west and in
the shang Shangalan.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
And you were first in your class of test pilots.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yes, after I had did that c duty and then
I applied for test pilot work and went to Peticol
or went to pack Protection River and went through school,
got to be number one, and then spent about three
was there basically doing the work of the F four Phantom,

(23:04):
which was the new airplane coming up at that time.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
And as I understand that you were known, your reputation
was as an all night, all weather fighter pilot, so
you could fly under any conditions and that's what made
you special.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, that's how I was training back and when I
was at the squadron out of the west, and which
that was quite commitised. The night flan at night was
just starting and so we were the first people to
work it out and work out the problems that were

(23:39):
required for a night.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Flan and then you were invited to the Pentagon to
talk about this new space program.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well, while I was at the Pass River as a
test pilot, that was the time when NASA suddenly started
to think about putting somebody in space. And this was
called the Mercury Program. And consequently they asked the Air
Force and the Navy to give them candidates. They had

(24:11):
acquirements that basically were test pilots, and there were other
requirements too. You had to have an insuring degree in
things of this nature. And the military, the Air Force
and the Navy came up with thirty two applicants and
I was one of them. And so in nineteen fifty

(24:32):
eight I went out to Albuquerque, the hospital out there
that trained or that was good with aviation and things
of this nature, and I reported in with people like
Walli Charra and Al Shepherd and to do these physicals

(24:57):
and other the thirty two people that had their physical
events time, I was the hootie guy to float and
then of course they picked the seven guys that original
seven out of the other thirty one.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
So your life seems to be marked by adversity that
you just keep overcoming. You didn't get in the Naval Academy.
You stuck to it. You didn't get in that first
group of the original seven astronauts. You stick to it
that you have problems on Apollo thirteen. You stick. I mean,
I know you gave a lot of speeches over the years,
but I'm assuming perseverance had to be top of the

(25:31):
list of things you can tell people about.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Well, that's right, don't they see? Try and try again.
And I've told that to a lot of young kids
over the years.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
So in about nineteen sixty two, after that first crop
of seven, you do try again, and you join the
second group along with Neil Armstrong, and that's when you
moved to Clear Lake.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Well, that's right. What happened was I was I didn't
tell the military that I had flogged the physical, which
was not really that bad. I just had what was
known as a high biller Reuben in my bloodstream, so
it didn't affect my aviation or anything like that. So
I didn't bother to tell the Navy. You know, the

(26:14):
Navy just thought that I wasn't selected with the original seven,
and consequently, some years later NASA needed more people. They
were looking now not just at the Mercury, but other
programs coming up, and they were thinking about, you know,
actually going to the Moon. And so they called me

(26:35):
up again and said, listen, we didn't make it the
first time, when she liked to try again, and I
said sure, And so this time I went to actually
San Antonio. I was examined by the Air Force people
and they thought I was just fine, and so I
actually got into the second program.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
The program when you moved to Clear Lake. You know,
I've heard a lot about from these astronaut families, and
I guess y'all lived in Timber Cove in Taylor Lake
Village until nineteen eighty. And all I hear about is
these NASA families and how close knit they were, and
how they partied together, and they just loved each other

(27:19):
in close friendships. And even to this day there's plaques
on the houses where they lived talk about that if
you will.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, well, I mean we moved into I got down
to the Houston, and when I first arrived, I stayed
at the Bachelor Offices quarters at Ellington Field. And then
when my wife came down, we started to look for
someplace to live and we runted a house for a while,

(27:49):
and then I started to look at timber Cove and
we liked what we saw there, and we started to
build a house there in timber Cove, which we were
there for many years, I guess all ever since, not
quite all the time until I moved into into Houston directly.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, it strikes me that there is a culture kind
of like the fraternity of professional football players or you know,
the military when when they're in the field in war,
that there is this this culture of astronauts, especially at
that time, and I think the movie captured that, which
of course is based on your book. How important was
that I was told the neighborhood swimming pool there was

(28:35):
in the shape of the Mercury capsule. That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Yes, Well, it turned out the timber Cove and that's
around an area was quite a homestead for a lot
of the astronauts, and we have you know, Pete Conrad
just around the corner. Al Shepherd I lived on the canal,
and al and John Glenn and and and lived up

(29:00):
the way. Al Shepherds lived over the side, and so
it was Gus Grisson was there too, and so it
was sort of a gathering place and just a small community.
And actually you have to remember that this was just
all beginning. I mean it was just bare ground before that.
And when I got to Houston, the Spacecraft Center wasn't

(29:26):
built yet. It was just all farmland, and so things
actually grew up as I grew up in that area.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
I want to ask you, Captain Lovell, about some of
the titans of the space industry, the names that are
mentioned along with yours American heroes, and just ask you
to share for a moment your thoughts when you hear
that name. You were Neil Armstrong's back up on Apollo eleven.
When I say the name Neil Armstrong, what comes to mine?

Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well, he was in the second group of vashon Us
along with me, and he was the only civilian as
a matter of fact, that that particular time he worked
for NASA, and the hearst of us thought, oh, we're
in trouble here. But no, he is a great guy,
well rounded, well educated. Actually he was. Even though we

(30:19):
all wanted to go to be first on the Moon,
it turned out that having him being the first on
the moon was was really the right time as a
way to go.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
I read that you were suggested for that original crew,
and that while you were considered one of the three strongest,
he said, it wouldn't be fair to you because you're
a commander and you should get to command your own crew.
That seemed like a pretty big compliment.

Speaker 2 (30:48):
It was, and I forever want to thank Neil for that.
He was looking out the fact that that as a
captain of then and Wipe, I had my own, you know, ship,
and so he saw that and that's what he mentioned anestha.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
So there's a picture of four of you all that
were that was taken in tuxedos for the fiftieth anniversary
of Apollo. I guess it was. And Buzz Aldrin is
wearing this wacky tuxedo, which strikes me that of all
the astronauts, he's kind of the eccentric, quirky one.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Well, as you know throughout the years, Buzz is an
individual on his own his background, and I think that
you know, of course, there was some question that the
time Apollow eleven was going to go up, who would
be the first to sip down from the ladder on

(31:49):
the moon, And naturally the commander was going to be
the first, but he always had some misgivings about that.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
I read that it was you and Buzz Aldrin who
suggested swimming pools to learn weightlessness, and that that was
a big part of the advancement in the program.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Well, that's my second flight, Powell or no. Gemity twelve.
This was the last of the Gemini series. I was
this is my second flight, and I was the commander
and Buzz was with me on Gemity twelve. Now, the
purpose of Gemity twelve was to see if we could

(32:34):
prove some of the problems that we had with working
outside the spacecraft Jemany's nine, ten eleven. As a matter
of fact, all tried to as somebody work out the
spacecraft outside of the spacecraft and do some work. But
every time someone would leave the interior of the spacecraft

(32:55):
and start working around and they would get near the
space trip after I touch it, the spacecraft would kind
of push them away. This was the third law of motion.
For every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction, and
we didn't understand that at first. So it was very

(33:15):
difficult because you know, as soon as you got near
to the spacecraft it touched it, it would you know, said,
actually give you a reversal. And so what we did
for twelve to train was to with a NASA rented
a swimming pool in Baltimore. We sell a part of

(33:37):
the spacecraft, a monk up of the spacecraft in the water,
and then we had Buzz in a space suit and
I would sit on the edge of the swimming pool.
He would go down in the water, and then we
had various footholes and the hand holes, and he would
try them out to see how well he could work

(34:00):
in the water, which would be sort of neutral buoyancy,
the best thing we could get to zero gravity, and
to see if he could work out the techniques to
work outside the spacecraft. This was very successful and we
applied that that on Jemary twelve. I think they spent
some a couple of hours outside the spacecraft doing that work.

(34:23):
If you go down now to JSC, do you look
at some of the big water tanks they have down
there that has been proved very successful all the way
through shovel programs and everything else.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Talk about John Glenn if you would Captain lovell.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Well. John of course was the epidone of astronauts and spaceflights.
He of course was the first one to go up
and actually you remade I think what orbit came back
it down again. But he applied himself and then you know, uh,

(35:07):
he still was involved in the program, and he was
getting older, but by that time we had the Shuttle,
and he made another flight in the Shuttle as an
older astronaut to see that this, you know, wasn't the
program wasn't just to apply to young guys, that only

(35:29):
guys could do it too.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
How about Alan Shepherd.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Shepherd was an old baby and he was very much
interested I he had he had an ear problem for
some time after his very first flight, uh, which was
you know just what Orden, I think, at the very
first flight of all of us. He always wanted to

(35:56):
go back, but he was grounded. Uh. Finally he was.
He had an operation that got him to be okay
again for flight. And then I was a schedule for
Apollo fourteen, and suddenly they gave him Apollo or he

(36:23):
was scheduled for Apollo thirteen, I should say, and then
they gave him and I had fourteen, and then they
gave him fourteen and said, Jim, why don't you take thirteen?
I give Allan some more time to who train?

Speaker 1 (36:38):
How about Kim Manningly, there's a scene in the movie.
And obviously that's based on your book on how difficult
it was not to bring him up for fear that
he had rebella or measles, and then of course he
never never got it. It's clear that that was a
tough decision for you.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
It was a very tough decision. Manly was the astut astronauts.
He was bachelor at that time, had all the time
in the world to train. You know, he would use
the simulators in nighttime when the rest of us married
would go home, and so he would and he was

(37:17):
very conscientious about getting trained for that job. And I
couldn't believe it when the NASA said that, you know,
you've been exposed to the measles. Charlie Duke had the
measles and he was the backup, and so we were
all were near Charlie at that time. And then they

(37:40):
looked at our records and we both Fred Hayes and
I had the measles as kids, and so we were
sort of immune to them, and they had never had
the measles, and so they wanted to replace them. And
I argued with NASA to take him a better time

(38:01):
to have the beaseles than just orbiting the moon. He
wasn't going to land at all, and I felt that
I was perfectly happy to have him, and they didn't
take my advice and replaced Mattley with Jack. But he

(38:22):
was also all up ready to go, so we didn't
really worry too much.

Speaker 1 (38:28):
So in the movie, Kevin Bacon, of course plays Jack Swagger,
and he's this guy that you know is kind of
a rookie and he's making a lot of mistakes and
he's not ready. But my understanding is that's not accurate.
He was a consummate professional and he was ready.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Oh yeah, Jack Swagger and I was actually the best
guy I could have for a substitute, because he was
involved in the development of the command module malfunction procedures,
and of course you couldn't ask for a better guy
to be next to you. All we had to do
was to train him with some of the things that

(39:05):
the command modules pilots did. Command Bolus was to dock
with the lunar module just after we started on our
way to the Moon, and he was going to be
the guy that was going to be by himself. Well,
Fred Hayes and I were on the lunar surface, so
I really didn't worry about Jack, even though you know
he only came aboard a week or so before the flight.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
You mentioned the name Fred Hayes, and as I understand,
you have what you call Boom Day on April thirteenth.
You and Fred Hayes check in on each other every
year to commemorate that day. Oh yeah, how does that
conversation go?

Speaker 2 (39:44):
And I'm really sorry. You know, we're all involved with this.
The colnoriais you know problem. And here the fiftieth anniversary
had plans. I was going to go up to Huston,
Kansas to see my old spacecraft to say goodbye to him,

(40:08):
and then go down to to the Kennedy Space Center
and take my family down and Hayes would be down
there and the other people would be there, and we
celebrate the city's anniversary of Apollell thirteen. And all that
went by the boards with the virus.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Gene Krans, I'm told, keeps that white vest with the
Apollo thirteen patch, and considering everything he was involved with,
this seems to have been kind of what he considers
his shining moment. What is your thought on gene Kranz.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Well, Kranz was very capable of all the flights, and
he participated. He was the chief and the control of
their Michigan control and did quite a job. And he
had that he had where his wife started to make
those light vest worms and for every flight he put
the pats of the flight on it, and it was

(41:06):
quite significant, I guess, I guess they became quite quite
valuable after a period of time. I think ones that
the Smithsonian, if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Wow, So I guess you're only the second oldest American
astronaut alive, because you're two weeks younger than Frank Borman.
Talk about Frank Borman.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Well, Frank and I of course were in Germany seven.
Now that was going to be a two week mission
to find out if man could live in zero gravity
for two weeks or what would be the effects, because
about two weeks was the time for an Apollo flight
overall flight, and so we were, of course I'm wired
up to over their bodies so they could read blood

(41:49):
pressure and heart rate and things like that, and we
took off their two weeks and it was like two
weeks the bedroom and we both lasted that whole time. Uh,
an amazing thing. We had a good joke about it.
And later on after we came back, we were on

(42:11):
the the aircraft carrier. The first thing we said to
the all but news people was that they were engaged.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Talk about Jean Cern and I'm told that's the guy
that he's from Chicago, shares check blood with you, that
that you're most compatible with.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah, Jane and I were very compatible. He was from
Chicago and Uh and of course my family had started
in Chicago and the jerk, the Geminy or the Check
I should say that, the chech group and he's I
think his name was actually servant check on one time. UH.

(42:51):
And so we got to know each other quiet well
during the program and he was back up to UH.
I think it was a pollo our Gemity twelve and everything.
And even after the flights, we Jean and Neil and
I went to Afghanistan and Iraq to to talk about

(43:18):
the talk to the olders and the troops up there,
and we tell them how, you know, grateful we all
were with what they were doing, and we were proud
of them, and they in turn, we in turn talked
about space stories. So we got to know each other
quite well and over the years and really sorry to

(43:38):
see him go.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
You were an only child, and I've read that for
some reason many astronauts grow up as only as an
only child. Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Well, you got to remember the time I was born
in nineteen twenty eight. What happened in twenty nine, you know,
and the depression was going on in nine. In the
early thirties, the family didn't have that many kids that
they have nowadays, and consequently it was these are some

(44:14):
tough times that I can remember that my father when
he died earlyer. My mother didn't make much money as
a secretary, and we would have tough times living, but
we survived.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
You mentioned you were born in nineteen twenty eight. In
March twenty fifth, you just turned ninety two. That's a
year after Charles Lindbergh's famous flight, and I'm told that
he was your hero.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
That's right, you know, during growing up here is children
beatty boys growing up usually have heroes that are doing that.
And with Lindbergh a flight manuslated twenty seven and then
of course the well when I was born and then
in the thirties, we were interested in flying. I built
all the airplanes and I read about everything about aviation,

(45:07):
and so Lindberg naturally came to mind, and he was
my hero as a youngster, and it's amazing that we
got to meet him during my Space days, especially at
Apollo eight. He and his wife came down and Barman
and Andrews and I had lunch with him, and it
was really, you know, really something that I dreamed about.

(45:31):
What was a smaller kid. That was a real thing.
And then finally after Apollo thirteen, I got a letter
from Lindbergh just a week or so after I arrived home,
and he was out of the Philippines doing some work
with the tribes there, I think at Minton now, but

(45:54):
he actually when he went up in a helicopter to
as I was coming back during that period where it
was touch and go, he went up in a helicopter
and listened to the radio from Manila to see how
well I was doing on the return on thirteen.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Wow, what a neat thing to get to meet the
guy that was your childhood hero. And then and then
Apollo eight he comes in, and then I guess for
the Apollo eleven launch, I'm told you were assigned to him,
so you got to take care of him and then
to get this personal letter from him afterwards. What I mean,
you have lived daydream?

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah. Yeah. I was asked to escort him just for
the launch of Apollo eleven, and he and I were
out of the beach and I was looking at everything
and the countdown was going down, and I finally I said,
you know, colonel, remember, take a good look at that rocket,

(46:58):
at that spacecraft. It down, Tom, they're going to actually
land on the bone. And he had his I think,
his mind someplace else, and then I think he was
thinking about his own flight from New York to Paris
way back in twenty.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Seven Spirit of Saint Louis.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Yes, this would be really quite an achievement to land
on the own. But your flight, your flight, that's the
flight I remember at very first flight from the Earth
to the Bone.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
There is a wonderful book by Bill Bryson that came
out a couple of years ago, and it's called nineteen
twenty seven, and it's about Babe Ruth's miraculous year when
it was thought he was at the end of his
career and Charles Lindberg's Spirit of Saint Louis and how
it all came to be and how amazing it was
and how it changed his life, and he says that

(47:48):
Charles Lindberg was the biggest celebrity the world had ever known.
He was the first worldwide celebrity.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
I guess he was honored throughout his career. Of course.
I think right now he's buried in Hawaii. I think
that's where his a little risky places.

Speaker 1 (48:09):
So Nixon comes to the Mann Space Center honors Kraan's
and the others with the Congressional Medal of Freedom. Your
wives get to hop on Air Force one and come
to Hawaii and they meet you there to receive you.
Talk about that moment, Well.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
It was quite a quite quite an event. I really
appreciate it. We, of course were picked up then's flown
from the carrier into one of the islands, I forget
which one it was, and then an Air Force plane
picked us up from there and flew us to Hawaii.

(48:49):
At the same time that our wives were invited to
go on Air Force one with the President, and so
he flew from the US to Hawaii, and we got
to Hawaii a little bit before the president, so instead
of landing, we circled Hawaii for a while, and then

(49:10):
the President landed, and then we landed so the President
could be there to welcome us home. And of course
as we started to get off the airplane, the President
told the girls the wives. They said, hey, you go ahead,
you're welcome, and I'll follow up. And that was very
very nice of I. We really enjoyed that.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
But that wasn't the first time you'd met a president.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
No, that it wasn't. As a matter of fact, I
was a president consultant on physical fitness and sports, and
consequently it was you met several presidents.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
So I want to talk about your business career in
between seventy three and when the movie comes out in
ninety five, in just a moment, but when you retire,
you write this book along with Klueger Lost Moon, and
you get the call that Ron Howard is looking at
making a movie. Talk about that moment.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Well, Jeff Cougan and I decided to get together. As
a matter of fact, this kind occurred to us on
the carrier when I looked at at Jack Schwiker and
Fred Hayes said, hey, you know, we don't like something
about this. This is really unusual. But we didn't do

(50:33):
it until later on, and then I got a call
at home, and it was from Jeff Couger. Jeff was
a writer for the Discovery magazine, and he said, I'd
like to write a story about Apollo thirteen. And I said, well,

(50:54):
that's what I want to do too. I said, well,
let's get together and do it jointly, and he said,
that's let's do that. And so that's how it all
got started. We wrote some of the transcripts to start
out with, and so we could take them over to
a potential company that would, you know, do the book

(51:15):
for us. And our agent also sent them out the
various Bowie companies, including the one of let Me see Imagine,
You Imagine Entertainment, and well, unbeknows to us. And I

(51:36):
wasn't until some time later that I knew that the
son of one of the flight directors who was involved
with NASA, Donald Houston, and was involved with Apollo thirteen.
The son was working for I'm trying to think now
of the director of my.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Ron Howard.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Yeah, Ron Howard, and and he had gone and saw
the script that we sent to the to our agent
sent to Ron Howard's company to see if they were interested,
and he read it and he went to Ron Howard
and said, look it, this looks like i'd be an
interesting story. Are you interested? And Ron was, And so

(52:20):
to make a long story short, he invited Jeff and
I out there and we spent several hours in the
conversation with him to see if to see if he
liked to make the book, and that's where he decided
to make the book.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
As I understand it, Tom, Tom Hanks was very excited
about this movie and he wants to get into character.
So he and Rita, his wife, come to spend the
weekend with you at Horseshoe Bay. And I heard quite
a story about that, if you could tell it.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yes, well, of course that occurs later on. Hanks was
always interested in his in his career, one of the
things to portray would be an astronaut. And so when
this thing came up with uh Ron Howard, he asked
him if he could play the part, and and and
he was selected. One of the things that Hanks wanted

(53:19):
to do was to get acquainted with the NASA people
and go down to the to the Johnson Spacecraft Center
and meet the people. And I invited him to our
house and Horseshoe May start out with and we could
talk over some of the aspects that that that he'd
be interested in and portraying me UH. And so I

(53:43):
had invited him down to our house and he flew
into Austin. I had all a small airplane, and so
I flew the airplane over to Austin to pick him up.
And he didn't know that he was I was going
to fly him to our house. And so I got
him there airplane and about a half an hour flight

(54:04):
from UH from Austin to to the our house. And
while I was there, I decided you tell him about
you know, zero gravity and things like that. So I
had an interesting a half hour flight with him going

(54:24):
in some of the aspects of zero gravity.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
And I understand you took him for a night flight
to give him a better sense of what he's what
he's working with.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
That's right after the official flight. I said, now, look
at UH, let me take you out at night and
show you some of the places that we needed. And
so I cut a little triangle a piece out of
some cardboard and had to fly to the right side
of the airplane off the window, I should say. And
then we got in and we took off at night

(54:56):
and as we climbed up by four. Say, it was
a very clear night and all the stars were out.
And as I got a little bit out of Horseshoe Bay,
more towards the west fled up and I showed up
the stars that we used, and then I I let
him fly the airplane for a while to see how

(55:19):
it was. And I showed him a looking through that
triangle opening there of the cardboard. That's all we had
to look at to find out what stars were we needed.
And I showed up the stars that we used to
give him a good feel of what it would be
like in the spacecraft. And night on the way back

(55:41):
for the Moon.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
As you sat in the Kodak Theater for the screening
of that movie, and incomes Tom Hanks and his wife Rita,
and Kevin Costner comes in and all these stars are
coming in to see your story portrayed on the big screen.
What was going through your mind?

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Well, it's you know, it's quite you know, boy, you
can't believe, you know, you have your self portrayed on
the screen doing the things that we had done, you know,
on the actual flight. Is really something that's that you'll

(56:22):
always be proud of and think about and something that
I never really expected to see that I was.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
I was told a really neat story about Tom Hanks
buying the speeds of Apollo mural and presenting it to
you as a present, which I thought was was really powerful.
Could you tell that story.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
We'll say that again.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
I was told this beautiful story about Tom Hanks buying
the speeds of Apollo mural and presenting it to you
as a present.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
This story is kind of interesting. I was asked to
be a consultant when they were making the movie, and
so I was at in California, and when I was there,
I got a magazine from a local house that was

(57:23):
watching off a large mural called Steeds of Apollo. Well,
that mural was in a hotel in Washington, d C.
Years before when the Apollow thirteen crew was down there
fire to the flight and we just happen to be
staying at that hotel and we had our picture taken

(57:44):
with that portrait that mureau behind us. Well, it turns
out that that mural was then the hotel was over
the years was doing renovation, and that bureau was up
for all in Santa Monica. Uh And in this magazine

(58:04):
it showed where it was auction. So I told Hanks,
I said, look at here's this murau of stage of Apollo,
and that the artist who did that also did our
patch using that as a background, I said, and now
it's up for auction here and and uh Santa Monica

(58:26):
and they he knew at that time that this of course,
uh long later when we were looking at building a
restaurant here in Lake Forest, that that that mureau would
look pretty good at a restaurant. And uh so uh
I told him that I forgot completely about it. Well,

(58:49):
it turned out that was he and his wife, Rida Wilson,
when he and his wife and Rita's mother and not
not Tom went down to the auction and they bought
that Steeds of Apollo and and and had it shipped
down to Chicago into a a storage place. And unbeknownst

(59:18):
to me, and I was coming back from a trip
one time, and I got a call from my secretary
and said, listen, I want to pick you up at
the airport. It's very important, and so I said, look
for it. She said, I can't tell you that right now.
So when I got back to Chicago and I met
her at the airport. There my wife was also in

(59:41):
the car, and she started driving down to the center
of Chicago and kept going down. And now there are
two parts of Chicago. If you stay to the left,
there's all the down to Chicago with all the lights
and the restaurants and all that. But then she feared off,
you're going west, which is a little bit of you know,

(01:00:02):
the factory side and things like that. I said, where
are you going? That? I can't tell you. And finally
she picked up or she parked at a at a
warehouse and there was a single light over the door,
and she said, just a minute. I said, can I
go with you? She said no, And finally she calls

(01:00:23):
me over and Merlyn and I go over there and
it's a warehouse, worthy store intings and things like that,
and on the wall was the huge mural and at
the bottom is the bottle of champagne that was open,
and and her iPhone, and on the iPhone was Tom

(01:00:45):
Hanks Uh, and he said, I just want to give
you this as a and to help you with the restaurants.
You're by the building.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
What a nice thing. So you developed the friendship, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Yeah, we did developed a friendship. We had a friendship
before that you know, uh, you know, there's ever since
he was with us out of Horseshoe Bay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
The motto for the mission was X Luna Sciencia from
the Moon Knowledge. What what did you hope humanity would
learn from that mission?

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Well? I wasn't quite sure we were going to look
at the moon and pick up rocks where it's all
was necessary. That was sort of an unusual part of
the moon that we're going to frommorrow. And that model,
by the way, I kind of sliped from the Naval Academy,
which was something like x x Oceanicho or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
But it was the it was the Greek word of
its from knowledge.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Ex actually right X trades and so I slipped that
I put in place of it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
What was your reasoning for the odyssey? I have read
that it was because you liked the fact that Odysseus
had been through all these challenges and had overcome them,
and you wanted to apply that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Oh yeah, it was a natural the odyssey. The story
of the Odyssey was one of trial and lots of
lots of problems and things like that, and that's what
we thought the spacecraft would be doing. And we didn't
know the accident of course, but we thought, honestly would
be perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Captain Lovell, I could ask you questions all afternoon, but
I know I can't keep you that long. Is there
something I didn't ask you that you'd like to talk
about otherwise? I'm good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Well, No, I missed Texas. I missed the horse Hue Bay,
and miss Houston. There's a lot of friends down there
that are still there. At one time we were going
to have a galo down there for Apollo thirteen. Of
course that was all screw by this time, but my son,
of course, lives down there, so we're very happy about

(01:03:05):
Texas well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
If if in fact, you're back home anytime soon, it
would be an absolute pleasure to meet you and to
introduce you to my boys. You are a true American
hero and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to talk to you.
Thank you for your service, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Well, it's been a lot of fun and I enjoyed
talking to YouTube.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
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(01:03:47):
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(01:04:12):
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(01:04:35):
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(01:05:00):
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