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Forum:	Space Explorers & Workers
Topic:	Paul Haney, voice of Mission Control (1928-2009)

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Your Reply: HTML is ON UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend	[QUOTE]Originally posted by Robert Pearlman: [B]Paul Haney, 80, NASA's first news director and the "Voice of Mission Control" for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, passed away of cancer on May 28, 2009. He was born on July 20, 1928, 41 years to the day before the first manned lunar landing. <center><img src="http://www.collectspace.com/review/obit_paulhaney02.jpg" WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="319"> <font size="-2">Photo credit: J.L. Pickering</font></center> In 1993, Haney was inducted into the [URL=http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.php?id=119]International Space Hall of Fame[/URL], providing this biographical profile: <BLOCKQUOTE>[b]NASA's 'Voice of Mission Control.'[/b] Paul Prichard Haney was born in Akron, Ohio in 1928. He put himself through Kent State University by working nights for the Associated Press, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism in 1945. After working for newspapers in Erie, Pennsylvania and Memphis, Tennessee, he joined the staff at the Washington, D.C. Evening Star newspaper in 1954. Three months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed in 1958, Haney joined the organization as an information officer, and from 1960 to 1962, served as NASA's first News Director. In that position, he managed the Cape Canaveral and Project Mercury information programs. His work in the Mercury program set the standard for all subsequent NASA information efforts. From 1962 to 1963, Paul Haney was the Public Affairs Officer for the Office of Manned Space Flight. In September 1963, he moved to Houston, Texas, and as Public Affairs Officer for the Manned Spaceflight Center (now the Johnson Space Center), directed the information flowing out of the Gemini and Apollo manned spaceflight programs. In this position he became well known as the "Voice of NASA's Mission Control," and the "Voice of Apollo." He also established the first NASA open-door museum at the Johnson Space Center (formally known as the Manned Spacecraft Center) in Houston. Paul Haney served with distinction throughout the Gemini program and the early phases of the Apollo program. He retired from NASA on April 25, 1969, after the successful Apollo 9 mission.</BLOCKQUOTE> In 2003, NASA Johnson Space Center's Oral History Project [URL=http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/HaneyPP/haneypp.pdf]interviewed[/URL] Haney, which included his recollections of a certain 'gotcha' during Apollo 7. <BLOCKQUOTE>"It was during [the] mission that this... thing about the drinking club that had started at Edwards came out. Are you a [turtle]... The original pictures are in the Smithsonian... We [flew] a television camera on 7, and [Wally] Schirra called them the cue cards. One of them they held up said, 'Paul Haney, are you a Turtle?" Another card said, "Deke Slayton, are you a Turtle?'" "...if [a turtle] out in public [is] asked if [he is] a Turtle, [the] answer [is], 'You bet your sweet ass I am.' [Refusal or lack of the proper answer meant] you had to buy a drink for everybody within earshot who were real turtles. And we were going live that afternoon to about 300 million people, including... turtles in Chile and Japan and all over the world." "That's the only time [the center director Bob] Gilruth ever called me into his office and said, 'What is... this [all about]? Why did you answer that question?'"</BLOCKQUOTE> While Apollo 7 orbited, Haney received a call at his station in Mission Control. <BLOCKQUOTE>"I never could figure out where the hell he got my console phone number. He called me during the mission, though, just out of the blue." <BLOCKQUOTE>He said, "Hi. This is Bob Hope." I said, "Yeah, and this is [Genghis Kahn]." He said, "No, this really is Bob Hope." "You're not Bob Hope." He says, "Yeah, I am." I said, "Where did you grow up?" He says, "Well, I was born in England, and then I moved to Cleveland." I said, "What part of Cleveland?" He says, "Oh. You must know Cleveland." I said, "Yeah, I know Cleveland. Where did you grow up in Cleveland?" He [said Eudid Avenue in the 50s]. I said, "Hi, Bob. What can I do for you?"</BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQUOTE> Bob Hope wanted to film his show from the auditorium at the Manned Spacecraft Center, which is how Haney, the Apollo 7 crew and actress Barbara Eden came to appear together. <center><img src="http://www.collectspace.com/review/obit_paulhaney01.jpg" WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="300"> <font size="-2">Photo credit: NASA</font></center> <BLOCKQUOTE>[i]From left: Barbara Eden, Bob Hope, Donn Eisele, Walt Cunningham, Wally Schirra and Paul Haney.[/i]</BLOCKQUOTE> More recently, Haney contributed the foreword to "Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965" by Colin Burgess and Francis French (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), wherein he wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>"It is difficult to encapsulate or explain what this heroic era meant to me, particularly within the constraints of a few pages."</BLOCKQUOTE> As a veteran newsman, Haney prepared his own obituary in 2000, before it was discovered he had cancer. Printed in the [URL=http://www.legacy.com/Alamogordonews/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=127841149]Alamgordo Daily News[/URL] on Saturday, May 30, it provided details for his memorial. <BLOCKQUOTE>A memorial service will be conducted at the Alamogordo Funeral Home at 4 p.m. Saturday, June 20, 2009. Those in attendance are invited to join us immediately afterward at the Desert Palms Mobile Home Estates, 2000 E. First Street, in the community recreation center for good conversation, memories and refreshments. In lieu of flowers, those wishing to make a contribution in Paul's name may do so to the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, or an Alamogordo cancer association such as Alamogordo Home Care-Hospice or the CAPPED organization. It was his wish that contributions be given to help those in need in the Alamogordo area.</BLOCKQUOTE> [i]A moment of silence can be signified by an entry with no words and only a period.[/i][/B][/QUOTE]
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