But Apollo 13 was never supposed to set a record. The crew were just trying to get home, and their only way back to Earth was the long way around the Moon.

What began as a mission to land on the moon became history’s most harrowing space rescue after a technical failure forced the crew of Apollo 13 into a 200,000-mile race for survival.

James Lovell, the pioneering U.S. astronaut whose two dramatic missions to the moon included Apollo 13, the nearly disastrous trip that captivated the world and decades later inspired a triumphant Hollywood blockbuster, died in Lake Forest, Illinois, the ...

Famed NASA astronaut Jim Lovell, who commanded the harrowing Apollo 13 mission that was forced to abandon a lunar landing attempt in 1970, has died. He was 97. Lovell died on August 7 in Lake Forest, Illinois, according to a NASA news release. The cause of ...

WASHINGTON >> American astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the failed 1970 mission to the moon that nearly ended in disaster but became an inspirational saga of survival and the basis for the hit movie “Apollo 13,” has died at the age of 97, NASA said today.

Aug. 8 (UPI) --Astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, died Thursday in Illinois, his family announced. He was 97. Lovell also flew on three other missions: Gemini 7, Gemini 12 and Apollo 8 in the 1960s, and was the first ...