Jim Lovell, who led the Apollo 13 mission back to Earth successfully in 1970, passed away at the age of 97. NASA claimed that he had “turned a potential tragedy into a success” after an explosion aboard the spaceship hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth forced the cancellation of a planned lunar landing.
One of the most famous moments in space flight history was Lovell and two other astronauts splashing back down into the Pacific Ocean, which tens of millions of people saw on television. Lovell was the first man to visit the Moon twice without ever landing. He was also a member of the Apollo 8 mission.
On a Saturday in Wisconsin, a sixteen-year-old pulled a bulky, three-foot tube into the center of a wide field. He had convinced his scientific instructor to assist him in building a homemade rocket. He had somehow gotten his hands on the components of gunpowder, which are charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate.
To protect himself, he put on a welder’s helmet. After filling it with powder and striking a match, he took off running. The rocket soared 80 feet before detonating. He would have been blasted to shreds if the chemicals had been put a little differently.
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