Jack Swigert

Jack Swigert
Country:	United States
Organization:	NASA
selected on	April 4, 1966 (5th NASA Group)
Calls:	1 space flight
Begin:	April 11, 1970
Landing:	April 17, 1970
Time in space:	5d 22h 54min
retired on	August 1977
Space flights
Apollo 13 (1970)

John Leonard "Jack" Swigert, Jr. (born  August 30, 1931 in Denver , Colorado , †  December 27, 1982 in Washington, DC ) was an American astronaut . He is best known for having participated in the Apollo 13 mission .

Swigert was a test pilot with North American Aviation before joining NASA . He served in the Air Force from 1953 to 1956 and as a fighter pilot in Japan and Korea. From 1957 to 1964 he was a test pilot at Pratt & Whitney .

Swigert was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. He was a member of the support team for the Apollo 7 and Apollo 11 missions . Swigert was initially a member of the backup team for the Apollo 13 . He then replaced capsuleer pilot Ken Mattingly 72 hours before the Apollo 13 mission began after doctors predicted the rubella outbreak for Mattingly . During the space mission in April 1970, a tank exploded while flying to the moon, which meant that the planned moon landing had to be abandoned. Technical improvisation was necessary to get the three crew members back alive in their damaged spacecraft. Swigert happened to be the astronaut on board the Apollo 13, of all people, who knew best about the emergency measures in the Apollo command module, as he had been personally involved in developing the corresponding procedures.

Swigert reported the voltage drop following the explosion at the space mission control center with the words "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." When asked by the control center in Houston , his colleague Jim Lovell , the commander of the space flight, repeated this message. In the filming of the mission , the statement by actor Tom Hanks was reproduced with the slightly different words "Houston, we have a problem" . The sobriety of the statement, which stood in contrast to the life-threatening situation in which the astronauts had gotten by the explosion, made the expression popular, which has since been used to understate a major unforeseen problem.

Immediately after landing, Swigert, like the other two astronauts, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon , one of the two highest civilian awards in the USA, from Apollo 13 .

Swigert took a leave of absence from NASA in April 1973 to become executive director of the science committee in the United States House of Representatives . He left NASA and the committee in August 1977 to get involved in politics. In 1979 he became the vice president of BDM Corporation in Golden . In November 1982 he was elected to the House of Representatives for the Republican Party as a member of the 6th  District of Colorado. He died of bone cancer on December 27, 1982 , before taking office. Daniel Schaefer received his mandate in the subsequent by-election.

A statue of Swigert has been in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the Washington Capitol since 1997 .

Special features and records

• Together with Jim Lovell and Fred Haise , he reached the furthest distance a human was from the earth during Apollo 13 (401,056 km).
• First NASA bachelor in space
• He was portrayed by Kevin Bacon in the 1995 Hollywood film about the Apollo 13 mission .

Web links

Commons : Jack Swigert  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Short biography of Jack Swigert at spacefacts.de
• NASA biography of Jack Swigert (English; PDF)
• Biography of Jack Swigert in the Encyclopedia Astronautica (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Houston, We've Had a Problem .
2. ↑ ¿Por qué la frase: Houston, tenemos un problema? . Retrieved June 29, 2016.
3. ^ Architect of the Capitol: The National Statuary Hall Collection. February 27, 2009, accessed February 27, 2009 .