Fred Haise

Fred Wallace Haise, Jr.
NASA Astronaut
Nationality	American
Born	November 14, 1933 (1933-11-14) Biloxi, Mississippi
Other occupation	Test Pilot
Time in space	5d 22h 54m
Selection	1966 NASA Group
Missions	Apollo 13, ALT
Mission insignia

Charles Bolden presents NASA's Ambassador of Exploration Award to Haise.

Fred Wallace Haise, Jr. (pronounced /ˈheɪz/ hayz) (born November 14, 1933) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Having flown on Apollo 13, Haise was to be the sixth human to walk on the Moon, but the mission did not land due to a failure aboard the spacecraft.

Early life and education

Haise was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. He attended Biloxi High School and Perkinston Junior College (now Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College). He graduated with honors in aeronautical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1959. He completed post-graduate courses at the USAF Aerospace Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1964 and the Harvard Business School PMD Program in 1972.

He completed naval aviator training in 1954 and served as a United States Marine Corps fighter pilot.

NASA career

Fred Haise in 1966.

His NASA career began as an aeronautical research pilot at Lewis Research Center in 1959. Further assignments were held as a research pilot at the NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in 1963 and as an astronaut at the Johnson Space Center in 1966. Haise was the first of the 1966 group to be assigned to Apollo duties – ahead of some group 3 members. He served on the back-up crew for the Apollo 8, Apollo 11, and Apollo 16 moon missions.

Apollo 13

Haise flew as the lunar module pilot on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970. Due to the free return trajectory on this mission, Haise, and Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert, the other two astronauts on Apollo 13, likely hold the record for the furthest distance from the Earth ever traveled by human beings. Haise was slated to become the sixth human to walk on the Moon during Apollo 13 behind Lovell, who was to be fifth. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell eventually became the fifth and sixth, respectively, on the Apollo 14 mission. Both missions were targeted for the Fra Mauro formation.

Space Shuttle program

Haise was also scheduled as commander for the cancelled Apollo 19 mission. He later flew five flights as the commander of the space shuttle Enterprise, in 1977, for the Approach and Landing Tests Program at Edwards Air Force Base, and was selected to command the original STS-2 mission to rescue the Skylab space station in 1979, but was cancelled due to the long delays in the Shuttle's development as well as the break-up of the Skylab in mid-1979.

Personal life

Fred Haise is married to the former F. Patt Price of Rogers, Texas. He has four children from a previous marriage to the former Mary (Sissy) Grant of Biloxi, Mississippi: Mary M. (Margaret) born on January 25, 1956; Frederick T., born on May 13, 1958; Stephen W., born on June 30, 1961 and Thomas J., born on July 6, 1970.

Fred Haise was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1970 by President Richard Nixon.

Haise retired from NASA in June 1979, and became a manager with Grumman Aerospace, before retiring in 1996. In 1995, Haise was inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor.

Haise on film

Bill Paxton played the role of Haise in the film Apollo 13 in 1995. Adam Baldwin also played Haise in the mini-series From The Earth To The Moon.

References

• "Astronaut Bio: Fred Haise". NASA. January 1996. http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/haise-fw.html. Retrieved 21 March 2009. 

External links

• Spacefacts biography of Fred Haise
• Short audio interview on Astrotalkuk.org during his visit to UK in 2009