Space News
space history and artifacts articles

Messages
space history discussion forums

Sightings
worldwide astronaut appearances

Resources
selected space history documents

  collectSPACE: Messages
  Space Events & Happenings
  Fred Haise in Garden City

Post New Topic  Post A Reply
profile | register | preferences | faq | search

next newest topic | next oldest topic
Author Topic:   Fred Haise in Garden City
Hart Sastrowardoyo
Member

Posts: 3445
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 10-26-2003 04:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Hart Sastrowardoyo   Click Here to Email Hart Sastrowardoyo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Celebrating the centennial of flight with Fred Haise
By Hartriono B. Sastrowardoyo

GARDEN CITY-To celebrate the centennial anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, the Cradle of Aviation Museum in New York is hosting a series of lectures by notable people in or with connections to the aviation field.

Kicking off the series was “Failure Is Not an Option,” by Fred Haise, on Friday, Oct. 24. One of 19 astronauts selected for the fifth class of astronauts in 1966, Haise has had a long career. Though his only spaceflight was on the “successful failure” of Apollo 13, he served on backup crews to Apollo 8, 11 and 16, and was named as commander of Apollo 19, which was cancelled shortly after training commenced. He also flew on three of the five free flights of the Enterprise space shuttle, and was also the commander of the original STS-3 mission.

“If I look back on my Apollo experience,” said Haise, “the biggest emotion I ever felt had to be disappointment. The normal cycle was that three flights after serving on a backup crew, you became the prime crew. After Apollo 16, I had hoped to cycle and become commander of Apollo 19. I had been training for four months with Jerry Carr [who would have been the lunar module pilot] and Bill Pogue, who would have been the command module pilot, when the mission got cancelled.

“They went over to Skylab and I inherited [Ed] Mitchell and [Stu] Roosa to finish the deadhead backup assignment. So I lost a second chance to walk on the moon.” Mitchell and Roosa had previously served on Apollo 14 as the lunar module and command module pilot, respectively.

“Following that, I was assigned to command the third orbital test flight of the space shuttle. I would have stayed and flown, had the mission stayed the same. We would have rescued Skylab, and Jack [Lousma] would remotely controlled a free flyer to dock with it, and then either deorbit or boosted it to a higher altitude.”

There was an increase in sunspot activity, and “that raises the atmosphere. Skylab fell before we launched the first shuttle. After that, STS-3 changed to a solar thermal mission, where the orbiter is pointed to determine the effects of heating on the vehicle. That wasn’t exciting, so I resigned. If they had given me STS-1, I also would have stayed.”

Most of Haise’s talk was about his experience on Apollo 13, and comparing what actually happened with the movie that was made based on the flight. He said that the magazine Quest: The History of Spaceflight had run a contest for whoever could detect the most errors, and the winning entry had noted some 50 errors, “including the stripes on the Saturn V booster rocket not being right,” said Haise. “However, there were other things that bothered me about the film.

“The foul language that they used, that was not our lines. I had gotten a hold of the air-to-ground transcripts as part of our debriefing, and I was surprised that there was not one curse word among the three of us, despite the circumstances.

“The movie was also unfair to Jack [Swigert].” Swigert had stepped in as Apollo 13’s command module pilot after the prime crew was exposed to German measles. Ken Mattingly, the original command module pilot, had never had the disease and it was feared that he would develop a case during the spaceflight. “I’ll be 70 next month.” said Haise, “I saw Ken recently. He still hasn’t developed measles, and he’s 69.”

Swigert served on the backup crew on Apollo 13 before sliding into the command module pilot slot, and Haise continued, “The backup crew always had a few more hours in the simulator. The prime crew had extracurricular activities like press conferences to attend to, and when that happened, the backup crew got more time in. I served on three backup crews, so I know that’s the case.

“And with the backup crew spending more time in the simulator, they could fly the mission just as well, if not better, than the prime crew. We had no doubt Jack couldn’t do as well a job as Ken.”

When it came time for the crew switch, Haise noted that “it was bad for the people who made the switch, both ways.” He explained that as a member on a backup crew, “one month beforehand you begin to understand that you’re probably not going to fly, and you reluctantly start backing away from it.”

As a prime crew member, “conversely, you get more excited. And with the switch two days before launch, it’s a total shift of emotions.

“We were allowed to take some stuff with us in personal preference kits; PPKs. Ken’s stuff was already packed. Jack didn’t have anything on board. As well, in the months before launch, you make your hotel room and airline reservations, and here’s all these people to see someone [Ken Mattingly] who’s not going to launch. Jack was a bachelor. We joked that he didn’t have time to invite his five girlfriends.

“There was more of that conflict than Jack couldn’t do the job.” Haise also said that the movie also made Swigert look bad in that “there was no argument as to who threw the switch between me and Jack.” It was when a switch was turned to stir the oxygen slush inside the tank that caused exposed fan wires to short and the Teflon insulation to catch fire in the pure oxygen environment.

“It was a routine task, like turning on a headlight. And like turning on a headlight, you’re not going to be sure whether or not the wires will short. If I wasn’t downstairs busy with the TV program, it would have been me who would have thrown the switch.”

As to why the changes to the Apollo 13 movie, Haise talked to actor Bill Paxton, who played him in the movie, and Paxton said that, “They said the first draft was too bland. They wanted some human interest, so they put it in to humanize the movie.”

Haise was also disappointed in the casting of the movie. “This isn’t [director] Ron Howard’s fault. The movie made it seem like Mission Control did it all, but there were main contractors and others in other rooms. They said they can develop only so many characters in two hours and thirty minutes, and they didn’t have the budget to have that many people.

“I guess you can look at the movie artistically, or by how it did at the box office. It was up for nine Academy Awards. It cost $50 million to make it and by all accounts, it was a blockbuster – I think only Batman beat it that year.

“Apollo 13 was the story of people who got in trouble and had to face it with team effort. There were some challenges that had to be faced in order to be successful and get back.”

Haise related that same theme when he described his 1973 crash of an aircraft during the filming of Tora! Tora! Tora! movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor. He suffered 2d and 3d degree burns over 65% of his body. “I was on the critical list for three weeks. There was a composite team effort to help me achieve my goal of returning to flight status, and I did so after only 14 months.”

With his flight status restored, he commanded some of the Enterprise approach and landing test flights. He called the captive flights, in which the shuttle was not released from its 747 carrier vehicle, “like being on a magic carpet. We didn’t expect that with us on top of the 747, we couldn’t see the airplane underneath us, even if we looked out the side or forward windows.”

The approach and landing tests helped to determine the airworthiness of the vehicle, as well as some of the vehicle systems. “The three captive flights I flew helped to measure the loads on the struts and on the 747, to assure a good separation when we released Enterprise.

“When we did separate from the 747 there was such a jolt that we lost one of the five computers. But the other ones worked well.

“There was no way to calibrate the shuttle’s airspeed, so we used chase planes who called out altitude and speed to us.”

And lastly, “We tested the brakes and the nosewheel steering, and our testing was backwards to what normally occurs. Usually you do taxi tests. We worked from the high end of 300 knots to zero. We waited until we slowed down before we applied the brakes and the nosewheel steering.”

Despite his loss of his chance to walk on the moon, as well as the loss of another flight after Apollo, Haise noted, “It’ll be 34 years next April [since Apollo 13], and time has a way of mellowing the disappointments. Not many people have gone back to the moon since then,” he noted wryly, “and I don’t believe anyone will go back in my lifetime.

“I feel very lucky, very privileged to have been in the right time and at the right place, to be one of 24 that have gone to the moon. That’s the way I look at it now.”

Retired in 1996 from the business world, Haise says he now does public speaking, and enjoys his grandchildren. “I spend time with them probably more than I should,” he said with a smile, adding that he has a new one who was a month old. It’s like that bumper sticker says: ‘I wish I had grandchildren first.’”

**30**

All times are CT (US)

next newest topic | next oldest topic

Administrative Options: Close Topic | Archive/Move | Delete Topic
Post New Topic  Post A Reply
Hop to:

Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts

Copyright 2020 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved.


Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.47a





advertisement