People Are Just Learning Who Jack Black's Mom Is And How She Helped Save Astronauts While Giving Birth

Jack Black is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, but his mom has quite a reputation of her own.

His mother, Judith Love Cohen, was a real jack of all trades. 

She was an aerospace engineer and even a former ballet dancer.

For some time now, there’s been a story making rounds on the internet about the work Cohen did for NASA, and it turns out, the story is very much true.

Judith Love Cohen with Jack Black People

Judith indeed played a significant role in a very special mission.

Judith worked with NASA to design the Abort-Guidance System that brought the Apollo 13 astronauts back to Earth.

This mission is quite infamous. It was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third that was meant to land on the moon. 

However, things didn’t go as planned. Shortly after it took off in 1970, disaster struck.

An explosion damaged the oxygen tanks, which rendered the operating systems useless and left the crew stranded in space. 

Fortunately, the ground team managed to bring them home safely, with Judith playing a huge role in the rescue.

Judith’s story went viral on Reddit. 

Judith and Neil Siegel USC Viterbi School of Engineering

One user wrote: “Judith Love Cohen was an American aerospace engineer who helped create the Abort-Guidance System that rescued Apollo 13 astronauts.” 

“When she went into labor, she took her work to the hospital, printed out the problem, called her boss, and said she finished it before giving birth to Jack Black.”

Truly legendary, right? Well, Judith’s son, Neil Siegel, who is also Jack Black’s half-brother, confirmed this incredible story in a 2016 obituary.

Talking about his mom’s impressive career, Siegel wrote: 

“Her engineering career included roles on the teams that created the guidance computer for the Minuteman missile, the Abort-Guidance System in the Lunar Excursion Module for the Apollo space program, the ground system for the Tracking Data, and Relay System Satellite (recently retired after nearly 40 years of operations on orbit!) among others.”

Siegel also talked about that remarkable day involving Apollo 13 and Black's birth.

“She actually went to her office on the day that Jack was born,” he wrote. 

Judith Love Cohen helped create the Abort-Guidance System Reddit / @senorphone1

“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.”

This story left people amazed. One person wrote: “F**k, that is interesting.” 

Another said: “Totally awesome. Not just interesting.”

And a third added: “I don’t even know which part of that sentence is the biggest flex.”

Judith passed away in 2016 at the age of 82. On Mother's Day last year, Black paid tribute to her with a heartfelt Instagram post.

He shared a photo of Judith, seemingly hard at work in a lab, and wrote: “It’s true... my mom was a bad-ass aerospace engineer... and also a loving mother... I miss you mama!”