S2 Bonus 01: Jim Lovell

13 Minutes to the Moon

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture, Technology

4.8 • 9.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2020

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Special episode with Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell. An extended interview. The true space pioneer talks to Kevin Fong about everything from the shocking moment of the explosion to the enormous relief of the splashdown. #13MinutestotheMoon Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg for Bleeding Fingers Music

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Andrew Lockbaker, the series producer of 13 Minutes to the Moon.
0:04.8	This is one of two bonus episodes for you, released in the week of the 50th anniversary of a
0:10.5	Apollo 13. It's an edited version of the conversation that Kevin and I recorded with the legend
0:17.2	that is Captain Jim Lovell, Commander of that mission. We had the great privilege of interviewing him
0:24.4	over two mornings at the Community Library near his home north of Chicago.
0:29.4	Now, we knew we were going to get some great story-telling, because we'd interview Jim
0:33.7	about his first flight around the Moon on Apollo 8 for Season 1, but I'd forgotten about his
0:39.8	sense of humour and the love or laugh which rings out not infrequently between Jim's tales of
0:45.9	danger after danger and threat after threat. Anyway, I've stitched the recordings from the two
0:52.4	mornings into one piece. It covers a lot of ground from the traumatic moment of the explosion
0:59.0	to the enormous relief that splashed down. We're going to start this just before the explosion
1:04.2	happens. Two days, eight hours after lift off, Jack Swaggett in the command module has thrown
1:10.4	the switch to stir the 40 liquid oxygen tank. Jim and Fred Hayes have wrapped up their TV broadcast
1:18.1	from Aquarius. We had just finished. Hayes was still in the spacecraft. I was taking the camera
1:27.6	back down to the command module. When suddenly there was a big bang. Now, in the past, Fred
1:37.3	liked to have a little joke. And there was a switch that if you threw it, it was an oxygen
1:43.8	tank thing. We'd go, just bang. And he'd love to do that because that was his idea. It's scared,
1:51.2	you know, Jack and I, what happened to you? And so, immediately, my way down into the command
1:57.2	module, I heard this. I thought that Hayes was playing games together. So he likes to do that.
2:03.6	And I looked up and I, the expression on Hayes' face was entirely different. He had no idea what
2:10.9	was going on. Then I looked at Swiker. Swiker's eyes were as white as saucers. Neither did he have
2:18.4	any idea what was going on. But it didn't take long for us to get down in the command module,
	...

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