Apollo 13 commander James Lovell: “Crises don’t bother me anymore”
On April 14, 1970, 56 hours after the Apollo 13 spacecraft launched into space en route to the moon, commander James Lovell began filming inside the spacecraft’s command module as part of a live television program to be beamed down to three major U.S. networks. The broadcast was meant to give people on Earth a glimpse into the mission, which was to be NASA’s third landing on the moon, following its first historic and much celebrated Apollo 11 mission, and later, the equally successful Apollo 12. “But this was the third lunar landing flight,” says Lovell, who spoke at MIT on Wednesday to a rapt audience, packed and overflowing in Room 10-250. “All three networks received the signal — nobody carried it. There was the Dick Cavett show … a rerun of ‘I Love Lucy,’ and a ballgame — even people in the control center were watching the ballgame.” As there seemed...