Overview

• He died August 11, 2025, in Lake Forest, Illinois, and will be buried at the United States Naval Academy beside his wife, Marilyn.
• Selected in NASA’s second astronaut group in 1962, he became the first astronaut to complete four spaceflights, including the record-setting Gemini 7 and Gemini 12 missions.
• As command module pilot on Apollo 8 in 1968, he helped execute the first crewed lunar orbit and contributed to the iconic Earthrise imagery.
• Commanding Apollo 13 in 1970, he led his crew through a ruptured oxygen tank crisis 200,000 miles from Earth, using the lunar module as a lifeboat to bring them home.
• After retiring in 1973, he co-authored the memoir Lost Moon, donated historic artifacts like the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve script and received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.