Fred Haise
- Apollo 13 (1970 )
Fred Wallace Haise, Jr. ( born November 14, 1933, Biloxi, Mississippi, United States ) is a former American astronaut.
His only space flight proceeded without the desired success: Due to a glitch with Apollo 13 on the way to the moon, the planned lunar landing had to be omitted. But managed to return the crew safe and unharmed to Earth.
The Apollo Program
Haise was one of the 19 men who had NASA selected on April 4, 1966 in the fifth astronaut group, and have been trained for the Apollo program.
For the flight of Apollo 8 in December 1968 he was assigned as a replacement for William Anders, but did not play.
As was customary at the backup crew of Apollo flight should be three flights later form the main team, and so Haise was nominated as a pilot for the lunar module of Apollo 11 in July 1969, that is, that he should be one of the first men on the moon. But Michael Collins, who for health reasons could not attend Apollo 8, was re-nominated for Apollo 11 as a pilot of the Apollo Command Module. This task would actually Edwin Aldrin are to assume, for the pilot of the lunar module Eagle was. Haise had to move into the backup crew and was not used again.
So he came on April 11, 1970 Apollo 13 to his first space flight. Haise drove the lunar module Aquarius and was provided for this purpose to enter as the sixth man the lunar surface. Due to an explosion in the Apollo spacecraft on the way to the moon, the moon landing was canceled, and Haise was lucky to be returned along with James Lovell and John Swigert alive to Earth. Immediately after landing Haise as the other two astronauts of Apollo 13 by President Richard Nixon was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the two highest civilian awards in the United States.
During the Apollo 14 flight from January 31 to February 9, 1971 Haise served as speaker connection ( CapCom ).
For Apollo 16, in April 1972 he was again divided into the backup crew, this time as commander replacement for John Young. This Haise would have had good chances, but still be able to enter as commander of Apollo 19, the lunar surface, but NASA had originally planned for this 1973 flight in 1970 canceled for cost reasons.
The Space Shuttle
Haise was at NASA and changed in April 1973 in the Space Shuttle project, where he remained until January 1976 Technical Assistant to the Manager.
Haise commanded one of the two two-man teams who conducted the comprehensive approach and landing tests ( ALT) of the shuttle Enterprise. Haise and Gordon Fullerton his copilot flew on 18 June and on July 26, 1977 two of the three space shuttle tests in which the Enterprise was mounted on the back of a Boeing 747 and has not been solved.
In five other tests, the Enterprise was released from the 747 in flight and landed in gliders independently within a few minutes. Three of these tests were flown by Haise and Fullerton on 12 August, 23 September and 26 October 1977.
During this time was planned that the first flight of the Space Shuttle in 1979, should be performed. Haise was provided, the second flight, STS -2A to take into space, in which the shuttle Columbia should dock with the space station Skylab, to transport you into a higher orbit. Due to delays in the shuttle program, it no longer causes came, and Skylab finally died down on 11 July 1979.
Haise should also do one of the other orbital flights with Columbia, but he left NASA on 29 June 1979 without having been a second time in space or even on the moon.
Farewell to the NASA
Then Haise has held various managerial positions in the company Grumman Aerospace Corporation, before he retired in 1996.
Special features and Records
- Furthest distance from the Earth
- The man who has made the most test flights with the shuttle Enterprise
- In the Hollywood film Apollo 13, he was presented in 1995 by Bill Paxton