James A. Lovell, Jr was born on March 25, 1928. He is a former NASA astronaut and a retired U.S. Navy who had the opportunity to make historical trips in space. Flying was not something that was new to him, furthermore Lovell has alway been interested in rocketry, and also loved to build flying models as a child. He is widely known for being the commander of the Apollo Thirteen mission which was a “successful failure”. The mission suffered negative failures when going to the Moon but brought back safely to Earth. In 1958 after his six month test pilot training, he was selected for Project Mercury. Lovell failed to become one of the Mercury seven (Astronaut Group 1) because of medical reasons. In 1962 he was finally accepted …show more content… Which lead up to carbon dioxide levels to increase. Greg Santarelli mentions, “The main characters in the film Apollo 13, Gene Kranz and Jim Lovell, demonstrate transformational leadership qualities”. When it came down to make a decision to abort the mission in order to save the lives of the Apollo 13 crew, the decision was made quickly and unquestionably between Lovell and NASA. Jim and the crew expressed great communication throughout the mission. The hope of Apollo 13 was to land on the moon safely, but that goal was no longer reachable. Under great pressure and knowing the astronauts are faced with death, Jim Lovell continuously inspires and motivates the crew, knowing as the commander he had to stay calm. When the crew finds out about the crisis of carbon dioxide Lovell says “Just breathe normal, fellas”. Of course arguing starts occur and Jim shows confidence that everything will be fine. He makes an outrageous choice to remove his bio-med sensors to show his confidence and influenced the other two astronauts to do the same. In the article” Lovell says leadership key to Apollo 13 rescue” by Brice Wallace states, “Lovell recalled hearing a description of the Show More
