“Oh man, that’s great”: How Jim Lovell played his part in one of history’s most famous photos

Astronaut Jim Lovell, who has died at the age of 97, is best known to the world as the commander of NASA’s ill-fated Apollo 13 mission.

In April 1970, it was Lovell who uttered the famous line “Houston, we’ve had a problem”, after an explosion 200,000 miles from Earth crippled the crew’s spacecraft, as it carried them towards a planned landing on the Moon.

Working with the mission-control team back on Earth, Lovell and his fellow Apollo 13 astronauts - Jack Swigert and Fred Haise - somehow managed to nurse their power-starved craft safely back home.

Although Lovell, Haise and Swigert missed their chance to walk on the Moon, the mission has been described as “a tale of tragedy [that] would turn into a tale of triumph”.

However, while Apollo 13’s story of survival against the odds will rightly remain the defining moment of Lovell’s career, it came less than 18 months after he flew on another Moon mission that left an indelible imprint on human history.

“Bill, I got it framed” - Lovell’s role in the ‘Earthrise’ photo

In December 1968, the Ohio native was on the crew of Apollo 8 - a mission that spawned one of history’s most famous photographs.

Lovell served as command module pilot on Apollo 8, which was the first ever crewed flight to the Moon. The six-day mission did not include a descent to the Moon’s surface, but the crew’s 10-orbit flight around the satellite was a vital step on the road to Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing seven months later.

Moreover, Lovell became one of the first three humans - together with mission commander Frank Borman and lunar module pilot Bill Anders - to witness the spectacular sight of Earth rising above the lunar horizon.

It was Anders who immortalized the moment, snapping the now-iconic ‘Earthrise’ photo. And as a mission transcript shared by NASA makes clear, Lovell played a key role in getting the photo taken - over the objections of Borman.

A mission commander known for his meticulous and disciplined approach, Borman complained that taking the photo wasn’t on the schedule.

A photo with a lasting legacy

During the more than five decades since the photo was taken, the profound legacy of the ‘Earthrise’ image has endured. It has appeared on U.S. postage stamps, and figures front and center in Life magazine’s collection of the 100 “most important pictures of all time”.

Alongside the ‘pale blue dot’ photo, taken by the Voyager spacecraft in 1990, ‘Earthrise’ has also been credited with stoking awareness of the need to protect our home planet’s health. Indeed, the nature photographer Galen Rowell has described the image as “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

As Anders told Space.com in 2018, on the 50th anniversary of the day he took the photo: “We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth.”

Tributes paid to “unforgettable astronaut”

Lovell, who flew four times in space during an 11-year NASA career, died on Thursday, August 7, at his home in Lake Forest, Illinois. He is survived by four children, 11 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His wife, Marilyn, died at the age of 93 in August 2023.

In a statement, NASA administrator Sean Duffy lauded an astronaut whose “character and steadfast courage helped our nation reach the Moon and turned a potential tragedy into a success”.

“As the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 8, Jim and his crewmates became the first to lift off on a Saturn V rocket and orbit the Moon, proving that the lunar landing was within our reach,” Duffy said.

“As commander of the Apollo 13 mission, his calm strength under pressure helped return the crew safely to Earth and demonstrated the quick thinking and innovation that informed future NASA missions.

“Known for his wit, this unforgettable astronaut was nicknamed Smilin’ Jim by his fellow astronauts because he was quick with a grin when he had a particularly funny comeback […]. Jim Lovell embodied the bold resolve and optimism of both past and future explorers, and we will remember him always.”

Actor Tom Hanks, who played Lovell in Ron Howard’s 1995 big-screen dramatization of the Apollo 13 mission, wrote on Instagram: “There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own. Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy.”

Hanks added: “His many voyages around Earth and on to so-very-close to the moon were not made for riches or celebrity, but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive - and who better than Jim Lovell to make those voyages.”

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