DreamWorks Animation/Paramount’s Kung Fu Panda 4, the latest in the long-running Kung Fu Panda franchise, is a bonafide international hit, having grossed $151,652,055 in the United States and a whopping $347,255,055 globally in just three short weeks of theatrical release. Most people know actor Jack Black as the voice of Po and star of the franchise, along with such films as High Fidelity, School of Rock and Jumanji. Always musically inclined, he’s been the lead singer and guitarist for comedic hard rock band Tenacious D since 1994.
No secret, then, that Black is one of the world’ s most dynamic entertainers. But what isn’t very well known is that his remarkable life began on the same day his “badass aerospace engineer” mother, Judith Love Cohen, had the day of all days with her job, namely helping to save the imperiled Apollo 13 astronauts from certain death
In the late 1960s Love Cohen was a noted aerospace engineer whose career placed her amid various space-related projects. Her innovative work included contributions to the Minuteman missile’s guidance computer and the Abort-Guidance System (AGS) used in the Apollo Lunar Module.
Back then the United States was space crazy. Missions to the moon and beyond were a top focus of the country, which was in a true space race with the USSR. One of these missions was Apollo 13, which in 1970 suffered a near catastrophic incident on its way to the moon when an explosion on the shuttle led to mechanical failure and a rapid loss of oxygen.
It initially appeared that the three astronauts on board wouldn’t make it back home, but its Abort-Guidance System provided a backup option. The Command Module on the shuttle had to be shut down, however, in order to reserve resources for its re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. Ground Control had the crew transfer into the Lunar Module as a life boat of sorts, though it was only equipped for two people to be in for two days.
How does this all relate to Black’s own entry into the world? Namely because his mother helped solve an important problem that helped the successful adaptation of the Apollo 13 controls on the very day she gave birth to him. It was one of the last things she did before she went into labor.
Another of her children, Black’s half-brother Neil Siegel, later wrote in a 2016 obituary of their mother about what transpired that day more than 50 years ago.
“She actually went to her office on the day that Jack was born. When it was time to go to the hospital, she took with her a computer printout of the problem she was working on. Later that day, she called her boss and told him that she had solved the problem. And … oh, yes, the baby was born, too.”
The Abort Guidance system, with a major assist from Cohen, was technology included in the Apollo 13 shuttle that launched just months later. Her ability to solve a lingering problem in the configurations allowed the project to proceed into implementation.
As Cohen went into labor, she could not have foretold the horrible prospect of brave astronauts facing death. That happened approximately eight months later, on April 11, 1970, when the Apollo 13 explosion occurred. But one can only imagine the satisfaction she must have felt over the course of that next week, as she realized that the systems she helped pioneer were instrumental in saving all those on board the shuttle, all while looking at her bouncing baby boy who grew up to become Po the Kung Fu Panda, hero of the Valley of Peace.
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Born on the East Coast but currently residing on the West Coast, Andrew Martin has contributed to a variety of newspapers, magazines, blogs and other mediums but most fondly remembers his Master’s thesis exploring the impact of the Boston Red Sox on social identity in New England. He enjoys writing about history, sports, culture and investing and recently published his first book–Baseball’s Greatest Players: 10 Baseball Biographies for New Readers, a children’s book about baseball history.
