History and Heroes

Editor’s Note: Veteran astronaut, Apollo 13 Commander and naval aviator Jim Lovell died Aug. 7 at the age of 97. Our contributor Paul Dye, a former NASA Flight Director on the Space Shuttle program, spent time with Lovell at times during his career and wrote this tribute to one of his boyhood heroes.

There is an old saying—and I have often found it to be true—that says, “A man should never meet his heroes.” Heroes tend to be larger than life in theory, yet often are found to have feet of clay in real life. The truth is, most heroes are people who were doing their job—often extraordinarily well—and happened into a place in history where they achieved, excelled, or accomplished something unique, special, and memorable—and for that, they became a hero. And often, these ordinary people thrust into the spotlight turn out to be, well, ordinary—and that can be a disappointment.

Yet this saying is not always true, and I am glad to say that I ended up knowing—and working with—many of the men I held as heroes in my youth. I was privileged to follow in the footsteps of giants, the men who flew to—and walked on—the moon. And most of them turned out to be not only accomplished pilots, engineers, and scientists, they were also genuinely nice people. Oh sure, everyone has a bad day now and again, sometimes we let our egos take control, and there are days when you just decide to be a grump, but the Apollo astronauts were somehow able to rise above their fellow professionals in a way that made them gracious, friendly, and willing to share.

While several “moon men” went on into the Space Shuttle era, I only met Jim Lovell a few times because he had left the Agency by the time I arrived. But the community of people who went to space and who sent them there is small enough that reunions are held, beer is consumed, and stories told. I met most of the Mercury astronauts this way (and launched John Glenn into space late in his life), and Apollo guys were often around, so I shook hands and shared stories with Lovell a few times. Mostly, I saw him as an incredibly personable guy who could read the person he was talking to, listen to their own stories, and share his own without ego or hubris getting in the way.

The last time I remember running into him was during Shuttle mission STS-131. We were safely docked to the International Space Station, and my team was busy watching over the shuttle, its crew, and the timeline as cargo was transferred and station elements repaired and constructed. It was normal for important visitors to come through Mission Control during times like this, so I was not surprised when I looked up from my console and saw former Flight Director Gerry Griffin coming towards me with Capt. Lovell in tow. Smiles, handshakes, and introductions followed all around. Lovell was sprightly, with a twinkle in his eye. I thought to myself, “Here’s one of the guys who helped develop the techniques of space rendezvous back in Gemini. I wonder what he thinks of our Shuttle rendezvous procedures today?”

I pulled out the rendezvous checklist and opened it up for him to examine. We quickly discovered that it was very familiar to him, not because he’d used a Shuttle checklist before, but because the process was still so similar to that developed in Gemini—and refined in Apollo—that he could read and follow the modern procedures with a practiced eye. Rendezvous maneuvers (we call them “burns” because we use our rocket engines to make minor course corrections) have esoteric names: “Nominal Co-elliptic Correction (NCC),” “Nominal Planar Correction (NPC),” “Terminal Phase Initiation” (Ti). No one uses the long form in flight; we rely on the acronyms. And it turns out that many don’t know what the acronyms stand for anymore. They were thought up by the Gemini guys like Lovell and passed on from generation to generation. Lovell was sharp as a tack, enjoyed visiting with the young folks on our flight control team, and must have spent close to an hour sharing stories and absorbing the atmosphere of the place and profession where amazing things happened.

We lost Jim Aug. 7, and while that is sad, it is wonderful that he lived a long and productive life. It is frankly amazing to me that so many of the Apollo astronauts—the moonwalkers and orbiters in particular—have lived well, and lived well into their 90s. Maybe there is something in the cislunar radiation that gave them long life! We’ve got a few of them still with us, and when I last ran into Harrison Schmitt, you’d never know he was a day over 70. I wish he and the other remaining “heroes of history” a long and productive life.

In the end, while there is danger in meeting one’s heroes, I have to side with those who take the old saying with a grain of salt. Some heroes are spectacular human beings with twinkles in their eyes and the joy of sharing in their hearts. James Lovell was one of them. May he rest in peace.