On this Day: Lieutenant Colonel Lousma Pilots Skylab

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Lieutenant Colonel Lousma Pilots Skylab

Jack Robert Lousma was commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps in 1959 and received his wings in 1960 after completing his training at the U.S. Naval Air Training Command. He was assigned to VMA 224, 2nd Marine Air Wing as an attack pilot and later served with 1st Marine Air Wing in Iwakuni, Japan.

In 1966 Lousma was one out of nineteen astronauts selected by NASA, and he served as a member of the support crew for Apollo 9, 10, 13. On April 13, 1970, Lousma was the capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for the Apollo 13 mission, where he received one of the most famous (and often misquoted) messages in NASA history, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

On July 28, 1973, the second crewed Skylab mission launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and Lousma would pilot the spacecraft. According to NASA, “during the 59-day mission, the three astronauts continued maintenance of the space station, performed extensive scientific and medical experiments, installed a twin pole solar shield, and more than doubled the previous record for length of time in space.” During this mission, the crew completed 858 revolutions of the earth, traveled 24,400,000 miles in earth’s orbit, took 16,000 photographs and 18 miles of magnetic tape documenting the world, and performed 333 medical experiments on the effects of extended weightlessness on humans. Almost nine years later, he would command the third orbital space flight, STS-3.

Lousma has logged over 7,000 hours of flight time, including 700 hours in general aviation, 1,619 hours in space, 4,500 hours in jet aircraft, and 240 hours in helicopters.

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