posted 04-16-2016 08:01 AM               

Space Cover #364: A Tribute to Astronaut Fred Haise

Fred W. Haise, Jr., was born in Biloxi, MS in 1933 and will be 83 years old in November. As the LMP on Apollo 13, he was scheduled to become the sixth man to walk on the moon. The Apollo 13 in-flight abort canceled that, but Haise continued his NASA career as the Space Shuttle Enterprise Commander and piloted three of the five Enterprise Approach and Landing Test (ALT) flights in 1977.

An accident in 1973, though, came close to ending his NASA career and even his life. While ferrying a WWII T6 trainer aircraft, it crashed and Haise suffered burns over 50% of his body. After recovery, he continued his career and after his important involvement in the ALT Program, was selected as one of the eight astronauts to pilot the first four Space Shuttle flights, referred to as the Orbital Flight Tests (OFT).

Haise was selected at the CDR of STS-3, with Jack Lousma as the PLT. However, in June 1979 Haise decided to leave NASA and became a test pilot and executive with Grumman Aerospace.

Haise's departure from NASA and the OFT Program resulted in several crew changes, with Lousma and Gordon Fullerton forming the STS-3 crew and Vance Brand moving to the 5th flight, as CDR of the first Shuttle Operational Flight.

Fred Haise had a very distinguished career and is one of only 24 men to fly Apollo missions to the moon. He has long been a friend to us space collectors and his graciousness in autographing has resulted in his autograph gracing countless Apollo 13 and ALT covers, as these four covers shown here testify.

The top cover above is nicely signed by Haise as the Apollo 13 LMP, with the bottom cover signed by Haise as the ALT Enterprise CDR and Gordon Fullerton as the PLT. The cover marks the first of five ALT Enterprise free flights.

This cover, unfortunately not signed by John Young, displays the names of the eight astronauts that comprised the original four, two-man, OFT crews. I considered having Young sign this special cover at his first Novaspace signing, but the $500 fee discouraged that and this cover will forever remain incomplete - signed by seven of the eight original OFT astronauts.

This cover, unlike the cover above signed by seven of the eight original OFT team members, is complete and is signed by the final eight OFT astronauts who flew the first four Space Shuttle missions. After Haise left NASA, Ken Mattingly and Hank Hartsfield were selected to fly STS-4 and their autographs were added to this cover later.

The ten autographs on this cover include autographs of the eight original OFT astronauts; the eight final OFT astronauts; the four ALT astronauts (Haise, Fullerton, Engle, Truly); and Brand, the STS-5 CDR.

posted 04-16-2016 09:08 AM               

The covers depicted are superb, however, it's too bad that the third depicted cover, with all the original signatures of the first orbital flight test crews, lacks John Young. Too bad it couldn't had been signed by Young during one of the offered Novaspace private signings years ago. But during those early astronaut signing opportunities, Bob, did Young refuse to sign any covers?

posted 04-16-2016 01:15 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:
But I can't recall how the STS-9 pilot at the time had responded.

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posted 04-18-2016 11:18 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bob M:
While Weitz had the distinction of being the CDR of the 1st Challenger flight, in my opinion, Lousma had a greater distinction...

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posted 04-18-2016 05:29 PM               

Haise was probably in a good position at the time when the initial ALT/Enterprise cockpit seats were assigned and Deke even said that Freddo had been a "NASA test pilot" before his astronaut selection. He was more qualified and familiar with the demands of a new flight test program like ALT than most of his astronaut peers were.