James Arthur Lovell Jr. is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became one of the first three humans to fly to and orbit the Moon. In 1999 the Lovell family opened a fine dining restaurant in Lake Forest, Illinois. The restaurant was put on the market for sale in February 2014 and closed in April 2015, with the property auctioned the same month.
About Jim Lovell in brief
James Arthur Lovell Jr. is an American retired astronaut, naval aviator, and mechanical engineer. In 1968, as command module pilot of Apollo 8, he became one of the first three humans to fly to and orbit the Moon. He then commanded the 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission which, after a critical failure en route, circled around the Moon and returned safely to Earth. Lovell is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is the author of the 1994 book Lost Moon, on which the 1995 film Apollo 13 was based. The 1995 film portrayed the family’s home life during the Apollo 13 mission of 1970 with actress Kathleen Quinlan being nominated for a supporting actress Oscar for her performance as Marilyn Lovell. In 1999 the Lovell family opened a fine dining restaurant in Lake Forest, Illinois. The restaurant was put on the market for sale in February 2014 and closed in April 2015, with the property auctioned the same month. The couple has four children: Barbara, James, Susan, and Jeffrey. In 1952, following his graduation from the Naval Academy, Lovell married his high school sweetheart, Marilyn Lillie Gerlach. In January 1958 Lovell went to become one of 110 military test pilots selected as potential astronaut candidates for Project Mercury. Later that year Lovell, Wally Schirra; Lovell graduated first in his class, and failed to make the medical cut for Mercury Seven.
He was the first person to fly into space four times, and one of 24 people to have flown to the Moon, and the first people to do so twice. He went on to fly on two Gemini missions, Gemini 7 in 1965 and Gemini 12 in 1966. In 1954, he was assigned to VC-3 at Moffett Field near San Francisco, California. He flew F2H-3 Banshee night fighters from 1954 to 1956. This included a deployment aboard the USS Shangri-La, when the ship emerged from the shore deck with the new angled deck for the F3H Demonstration Demonstrator. In 1958, he went on a six-month test course at what was then the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland. In 1961, he flew on the Mercury Seven, which was the only second US carrier angled deck to provide pilot training for the Mercury Program. In 1962, he joined the Air Force as a test pilot for the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. In 1964, he served as a pilot on the F-3 Demonstrators. In 1966, he took part in the first space shuttle mission to the Marshall Islands. In 1967, he participated in a test flight of the F1 Demonstration F/A-18 Super Hornet. In 1969, he commanded the first manned space shuttle flight to the International Space Station. In 1970, he piloted the first unmanned space shuttle, the S.S.R. “Enterprise’s”.
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