Jack Swigert
NASA Astronaut, Pilot (1931-1982)
John Leonard Swigert Jr. (August 30, 1931 – December 27, 1982) was an American NASA astronaut, test pilot, mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer, United States Air Force pilot, and politician. In April 1970, as command module pilot of Apollo 13, he became one of 24 Apollo astronauts who reached the Moon. Due to the "slingshot" route around the Moon they chose to safely return to Earth, the Apollo 13 astronauts flew farther away from Earth than any other astronauts until the Artemis II lunar flyby in 2026, though they had to abort the Moon landing.
Before joining NASA in 1966, Swigert was a civilian test pilot and fighter pilot in the Air National Guard. After leaving NASA, he ran to represent Colorado in the U.S. Senate but lost in a primary election against Bill Armstrong. He subsequently was elected to represent Colorado's 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, but died of cancer before being sworn into office.
Early life
John Leonard Swigert Jr. was born on August 30, 1931, in Denver, Colorado, to parents Dr. John Leonard Swigert Sr.
The public source identifies “Jack Swigert” as nASA Astronaut, Pilot (1931-1982). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jack, Swigert and NASA.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q348358. VIAF identifies the subject as 8907361. The Library of Congress control number is n87836864. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1982, 1970 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jack Swigert” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.