James Arthur Lovell Jr. (March 25, 1928 – August 7, 2025)

The Apollo 13 commander was remembered for ‘legendary leadership in pioneering human space flight.’ Lovell died
on Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois. 

Jim Lovell, center, with fellow Apollo 13 astronauts Fred
Haise and Jack Swigert.

"Houston, we have a problem." The iconic five-word phrase spoken by Tom Hanks, portraying astronaut Jim Lovell, in
the 1995 blockbuster Apollo 13 instantly became one of the
most memorable movie quotes of all time.

Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, took the first close-up
images of the moon—4,308 in total—before it hit the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as
clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes.

The U.S. Congress passed legislation establishing the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s
activities in space, on July 29, 1958. The agency opened
for business on Oct. 1, 1958.

President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics
and Space Act of 1958 into law on July 29, creating
NASA.

At 12:51 EDT on July 24, 1969, Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that
had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely
returned to Earth.

The American effort to send astronauts to the moon had its origins
in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special
joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961.
        
        

The Apollo 11 astronauts are, from left, Neil Armstrong,
Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. They were quarantined
after splashdown to ensure they did not bring back any contamination from the moon. (Image credit: NASA)

On July 21, 2011, NASA’s space shuttle program completed
its final, and 135th, mission, when the shuttle Atlantis landed
at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.