Apollo Astronaut Jim Lovell to receive 2015 Howard Hughes Memorial Award

Jim Lovell

James A, Lovell, Jr. has been selected by the Aero Club of Southern California to receive the 2015 Howard Hughes Memorial Award. Established in 1978 by the Hughes family, the Award is presented annually to an aerospace leader whose accomplishments have contributed significantly to the advancement of aviation or space technology.

Lovell will receive his Award at a banquet at the Jonathan Club in Los Angeles, on Wednesday, February 10, 2016.

Lovell, a former NASA astronaut and a retired captain in the United States Navy, is most famous as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered a critical failure en route to the Moon but was brought back safely to Earth by the efforts of the crew and mission control.

Lovell was also the command module pilot of Apollo 8, the first Apollo mission to enter lunar orbit. He is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, the first of only three people to fly to the Moon twice, and the only one to have flown there twice without making a landing. He was also the first person to fly in space four times.

In the Navy, Lovell specialized in all-weather aircraft carrier night flying and served as program manager for the F4H Phantom fighter. In 1962 NASA selected him to serve in the second group of astronauts for the Gemini program

Previous recipients of the award, in chronological order, are Jack Northrop, Jimmy Doolittle, Pat Hyland, Bob Six, Kelly Johnson, Chuck Yeager, Ed Heinemann, Barry Goldwater Sr., Pete Conrad, Allen Paulson, Si Ramo, Jack Real, Ben Rich, Clifton Moore, Lee Atwood, Harry Wetzel, Bobbi Trout, Tom Jones, Allen Puckett, Paul MacCready, John Brizendine, Willis Hawkins, Sam Iacobellis, Kent Kresa, Neil Armstrong, Frank Robinson, Burt Rutan, Eileen Collins, James Albaugh, Ron Sugar, Bob Hoover, Fred Smith, Clay Lacy, Steven Udvar-Hazy, Edward Stone and Elon Musk.