Are the Apollo 13 Crew Still Alive Over 50 Years After the Doomed Mission?
"We knew quite quickly that we were in a dying vehicle," Jim Lovell said.
Published Sept. 6 2024, 11:10 a.m. ET
With the release of Apollo 13: Survival on Netflix, a whole new generation of people is curious about the fate of the astronauts on board the spacecraft that almost didn't make it home.
Indeed, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise were the brave men who were sent up to the moon on the mission. But are any of the Apollo 13 crew still alive after an oxygen tank exploded on board their vessel — and after over 50 years since the near disaster? Read on to find out.
So, are the crew of Apollo 13 still alive?
Especially in light of the astronauts being stuck in space, and hoping to come home in February 2025 via the SpaceX Dragon capsule, and with the Netflix documentary revisiting the near-disaster, there is interest anew in what happened with Apollo 13.
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 set out for a third moon landing with Jim, Jack, and Fred aboard. Just two days into the mission, an oxygen tank exploded and left the spacecraft badly compromised.
Incredibly, the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat of sorts, with NASA personnel on the ground desperately trying to help the men return safely to Earth over the course of four days.
As Jim recounted to Astronomy Magazine in 2020, "We knew quite quickly that we were in a dying vehicle and that we were gonna have to go into the lunar module, because it was the only thing that still had oxygen tanks. Because of the loss of electrical power, we lose our rocket engine on the command module. So it was gonna be dead, which is exactly what happened."
At the last moment, they reentered the command module since the lunar module was not designed for that purpose. Luckily, they survived and landed in the Pacific Ocean six days after Apollo 13 left for the moon.
"Of course, it was one of pure delight," Jim recalled about that moment. "We were coming back in, and we got through that one other big problem that we had, that we were being poisoned by our own exhalations. The environmental system in the lunar module had just one canister to remove carbon dioxide, and it was designed only for two guys for two days, and we were three guys for four days."
As far as where the Apollo 13 crewmembers are today, Jim is still alive at age 96.
Sadly, Jack died of cancer in 1982 at age 51.
Fred is also still alive at the age of 90.
Where is the Apollo 13 capsule now?
All those years ago when the space capsule splashed into the Pacific carrying the men safely home, it was not in good shape.
Where it is now, well, it's worth noting that the lunar module burned up in the earth's atmosphere.
However, the command module, "Odyssey," is housed at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas should you ever want to see a part of history.
