Less than a month after the opening of “Apollo 13” in theaters in June 1995, then-President Bill Clinton met with mission manager Jim Lovell to present the highest honor that the astronaut could ever receive – the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Joined in the Oval Office by former award winners Charles “Pete” Conrad and the U.S. Prime Minister John Glenn (D-Ohio), and Tom Hanks, who starred in Lovell in the hit film, Clinton noted that because of the film, the American people are now. He knew why Lovell deserved more praise than they had 25 years earlier since the disastrous Apollo 13 campaign returned to Earth safely in 1970.
“Even though you have lost a month,” Clinton told Lovell, “you have found something very important, a deep respect and gratitude for the American people.”
As the President threw the medal at Lovell’s head, the spectator from the sidelines was Lori Garver. Then the director-general of the National Space Society (NSS), a non-profit organization that fights for the construction of space travel culture, Garver not only was instrumental in arranging for the award to be awarded to Lovell, but, as few people knew in Time, and helped save the event from being canceled at night. Preceding.
