He never got to watch them launch. But his voice was there anyway, waiting — recorded two months before his death, ready to greet four astronauts at the edge of the world he once called his old neighborhood.
On Flight Day 6 of the Artemis II mission, the crew woke up to a message from Jim Lovell, the legendary Apollo 13 commander who passed away in August 2025 at the age of 97. NASA confirmed that Lovell had recorded the wake-up call well before his death, a final act of generosity from a man who had already given spaceflight more than most people could imagine. The message, warm and unhurried, landed at perhaps the most fitting moment possible — just as the crew was preparing for their lunar flyby.
A Voice From Another Era
“Hello, Artemis II! This is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell. Welcome to my old neighborhood!” That’s how he opened it. Simple, warm, a little proud. He went on to invoke the Apollo 8 mission of 1968 — when he, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the Moon — calling it humanity’s first up-close look at the lunar surface and a moment that “inspired and united people around the world.” Then, characteristically, he didn’t dwell on the past for too long. He was already looking forward, noting that the Artemis II crew would “lay the groundwork for missions to Mars … for the benefit of all.”
He addressed the crew by name. “Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy,” he said, “and all the great teams supporting you — good luck and Godspeed from all of us here on the good Earth.” It’s the kind of sign-off that doesn’t need embellishment. It just lands.
Breaking His Own Record
There’s a certain poetry to the timing. The Artemis II spacecraft is expected to reach a distance of 252,760 miles from Earth during its lunar swing — surpassing the 248,655-mile record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. That mission, of course, was Lovell’s. The one where an oxygen tank ruptured 200,000 miles from home and he and his crew improvised their way back alive. Now, more than five decades later, a new crew is quietly sailing past that mark, CBS News noted — and the man who set it recorded the send-off.
That’s not irony. That’s something closer to grace.
“Don’t Forget to Enjoy the View”
What’s easy to miss, reading the transcript, is how human the message sounds. Not ceremonial. Not stiff. Lovell knew how busy the crew would be — lunar flybys aren’t exactly downtime — and he said so. But he still made the ask: don’t forget to enjoy the view. It’s the kind of thing a grandfather says. Or a man who once stared out a spacecraft window at a small blue marble hanging in the dark and never quite got over it.
The Artemis II crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — received the message before Lovell’s passing, CBS reported. They knew it was coming. Still, hearing it at 250,000 miles from Earth, on the morning of a historic flyby, must have felt like something different entirely.
Jim Lovell orbited the Moon. He almost didn’t make it home. He spent the rest of his life talking about what it meant to see the Earth from out there — small, fragile, impossibly beautiful. Now four new astronauts are out in his old neighborhood, and somewhere in the mission audio, his voice is telling them to look up.
