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, has died. He was 97.

He died on Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced, without citing a cause.

A member of NASA’s second astronaut class, Lovell made history repeatedly during the heyday of the US space program, notching the first rendezvous with a crewed spacecraft; the longest American spaceflight of the 1960s, in Gemini 7; and the first lunar mission, the Apollo 8 orbital journey that captured the iconic image of a blue-and-white Earth suspended against lonely, black emptiness.

His two trips during the Gemini pr

See Full Page