Lovell, commander of the near-fatal Apollo 13 mission, died Thursday at the age of 97.

Tom Hanks pays tribute to Jim Lovell, the famed astronaut he portrayed in Apollo 13: ‘Godspeed you, on this next voyage’

Lovell, commander of the near-fatal Apollo 13 mission, died Thursday at the age of 97.

By Jessica Wang

Jessica is a staff writer at , where she covers TV, movies, and pop culture. Her work has appeared in Bustle, NYLON, Cosmopolitan, InStyle, and more. She lives in California with her dog.

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Published on August 8, 2025 07:05PM EDT

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The real astronaut Jim Lovell; Tom Hanks as Lovell in the film 'Apollo 13'. Credit:

NASA/Interim Archives/Getty; Universal Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection

Tom Hanks paid homage to the famed astronaut Jim Lovell, whom he portrayed in the Academy Award-winning 1995 feature *Apollo 13*, in the wake of his death.

"There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own," Hanks wrote on Instagram. "Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any person of our planet, was that kind of guy."

His voyages were "not made for riches or celebrity," Hanks said, "but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive — and who better than Jim Lovell to make those voyages?" Hanks added, "On this night of a full Moon, he passes on — to the heavens, to the cosmos, to the stars."

"Godspeed you, on this next voyage," Hanks concluded.**

Jim Lovell at the Omega Speedmaster Houston Event in 2015.

Craig Barritt/Getty

Lovell, best known as the commander of the near-fatal Apollo 13 mission to the moon that served as the basis of *Apollo 13,* died Thursday in Illinois at the age of 97.

"We are saddened to announce the passing of our beloved father, USN Captain James A. 'Jim' Lovell, a Navy pilot and officer, astronaut, leader, and space explorer," Lovell's family said in a statement. "We are enormously proud of his amazing life and career accomplishments, highlighted by his legendary leadership in pioneering human space flight."

The statement continued, "But, to all of us, he was dad, granddad, and the leader of our family. Most importantly, he was our hero. We will miss his unshakeable optimism, his sense of humor, and the way he made each of us feel we could do the impossible. He was truly one of a kind."**

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Lovell, who joined NASA in 1962, was a veteran of spacecrafts Gemini VII, Gemini XII, and Apollo 8 missions before he became commander of the infamous Apollo 13 mission to the moon. An oxygen tank exploded during the April 1970 expedition, significantly damaging the spacecraft and forcing the three-person crew to use the Lunar Module as a lifeboat. They managed to return to Earth after a harrowing six days stranded in space. He retired in 1973.**

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The near-fatal incident received the Hollywood treatment with Ron Howard's *Apollo 13.* Hanks' phrase, "Houston, we have a problem," a version of Lovell's own dispatch to NASA ground control following the explosion, became a part of the cinematic lexicon. (Lovell's actual radio transmission was "Houston, we've had a problem.") Bill Paxton, Ed Harris, Kevin Bacon, and Gary Sinise also starred in the film, which features a brief cameo from Lovell himself.

Tom Hanks and Jim Lovell visit the White House in the 1990s.

Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty

"Ron Howard puts a lot of his own people, especially his family, in his movies," Lovell recounted to the Illinois newspaper *Lake County News-Sun* in 2019. "So as the movie was going on, he said, 'Would you like to be in the movie? I'll make you the admiral of the ship that recovers you.' I said, 'No, I retired as a captain. I'll dig out the uniform of a captain — my own uniform. I'll dust it off.' It was my uniform. I took it out and put in on to make sure it didn't have any spots on it."

Lovell told Conan O'Brien during a late-night interview in the '90s that he became acquainted with Hanks during production, even inviting the star out to his home in Texas and letting him fly his airplane at night to get a sense of what it was like to navigate a spacecraft.

"You let Forrest Gump take the controls of the plane?" an incredulous O'Brien asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I was worried about that," quipped Lovell. "But my niece went to see the movie and she said, 'Well I knew that they'd make it okay because Forrest Gump was flying."

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Source: “AOL Movies”