Pulled From Apollo 13, He Turned Sadness Into Heroism

Seventy-two hours before liftoff, astronaut Ken "TK" Mattingly was pulled from Apollo 13. "There has never been anything in Shakespeare or any other publication that could throw a fit or feel sorry for yourself like I did," the astronaut, who'd been exposed to German measles, later said, per NPR. Mattingly, who died Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia, at age 87, would not only get to space, he would also help save three fellow astronauts when Apollo 13's oxygen tanks failed. "He stayed behind and provided key real-time decisions to successfully bring home the wounded spacecraft and the crew," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a Thursday statement. He described Mattingly as "one of our country's heroes" who was "key to the success of our Apollo Program."

The son of a pilot for Eastern Airlines, "I built every model airplane that I could find, ate every box of cereal that had a cutout paper airplane on the back," Mattingly told NASA in 2001, per the New York Times. He became an aeronautical engineer and was flying jets for the US Navy when he was selected to be an astronaut in 1966, per CBS News. He was a member of the support crews for Apollo 8, the first to reach the moon, and Apollo 11, the first lunar landing, per NPR. His efforts to rescue his fellow astronauts on Apollo 13 were showcased by Gary Sinise in the 1995 film. Mattingly would not accept the hero label, however. "I didn't play any role [in the rescue]," he once told NPR. "I was the observer. The people that played roles and in bringing that stuff together deserve a lot of credit."

Mattingly would later get to space on "the next-to-last manned mission to the moon," per the Times. As command module pilot on Apollo 16 in 1972, he orbited the moon, conducting experiments and recording observations, while John Young and Charlie Duke walked on the lunar surface. "I had this very palpable fear that if I saw too much, I couldn't remember," he later said, according to NASA. "It was just so impressive." He was also spacecraft commander for an "Earth-orbiting test flight of the shuttle Columbia" in 1982 and "a classified January 1985 mission aboard Discovery," per the Times. "As a leader in exploratory missions, TK will be remembered for braving the unknown for the sake of our country's future," Nelson said. (More astronauts stories.)