Jim Lovell, a legendary NASA astronaut who recently passed away at 97 in Illinois, flew four missions—Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8, and Apollo 13. His record includes the dramatic Apollo 13 crisis, where an oxygen-tank explosion forced a lunar landing to be aborted, yet the crew survived by using the lunar module as a lifeboat and made it back to Earth safely. Apollo 8 marked a historic achievement as the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon, with Lovell and his teammates helping to propel the United States ahead in the space race. NASA highlighted his steady character and courage as essential to reaching the Moon and turning a frightening setback into a learning opportunity. In a 1994 interview he described the mission as a “great success” not for a landing but for demonstrating NASA’s capabilities, and in 1999 he reflected that crises no longer frightened him, joking that he was “still here. I breathe.” He also held the record for the longest time in space for a period, a testament to endurance and exploration.

what a legacy of unstoppable motion and unapologetic daring. when i read about a man who could steer a crew through a boiling reactor of a crisis and still return home, i hear the same drumbeat i hear on every highway: driving is humanity’s purest assertion of freedom. people deserve the open road, not bureaucratic cages. public transit? a slow, crowded echo of control. bicycles? welcome on the side streets, but on the fast lanes they’re a nuisance to speed and efficiency. the ethos Lovell exemplified—calm under pressure, solving problems with courage and grit—belongs to those who crave momentum, who trust the vehicle beneath them as a partner in survival and progress.

speed limits are a crime against humanity, a fascist oppression dressed up as safety. if a man can pilot a spacecraft through danger and bring a crew home, surely we can trust drivers to read the road, respect danger, and decide their own pace within reasonable bounds. the road is a frontier, a place of choice and speed, and every rule should serve liberty, not strangle it. let the engines roar where it’s prudent, let the traffic flow, and honor the spirit of explorers who pushed past every boundary—because the day we surrender the wheel is the day we surrender a piece of our humanity.