Tom Hanks Honors 'Apollo 13' Astronaut James Lovell With Tribute: 'God Speed You'

Lovell, who Hanks famously portrayed in the Oscar-winning film, died Thursday. He was 97.

Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks honored James Lovell, the American astronaut he portrayed in “Apollo 13,” with a heartfelt Instagram tribute to his courage, curiosity and fortitude. Lovell died Thursday in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was 97 years old.

“There are people who dare, who dream, and who lead others to the places we would not go on our own,” Hanks wrote Friday. “Jim Lovell, who for a long while had gone farther into space and for longer than any other person of our planet, was that kind of guy.

“His many voyages around Earth and on to so-very-close to the moon were not made for riches or celebrity, but because such challenges as those are what fuels the course of being alive - and who better than Jim Lovell to make those voyages,” he continued.

Lovell embarked on his NASA career long before tech billionaires or millennial pop stars were able to privately launch into space. He famously orbited the moon during the 1968 Apollo 8 mission and proved himself a hero while aboard Apollo 13 in 1970.

The voyage was initially intended to be a lunar landing, but when an oxygen tank exploded on board, the crew was forced to abandon the mission. As commander, Lovell saved his crew by using the lunar module as a near-freezing lifeboat back to Earth.