By 1812Blockhouse
1812Blockhouse shares posts in our “Richland Roots” series to reveal stories of the well-known and less-commonly known people born here, or who lived here, and then went on to make significant contributions to state, regional, or national history.
Did you know that someone involved in the famed and ill-fated Apollo 13 mission was once stationed in Mansfield?
Fred Haise served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force before joining NASA as a research pilot. He was one of 19 astronauts chosen in 1966 for NASA’s Apollo program and over the next several years he was backup lunar module module pilot for both the Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 missions, and then was eventually the backup spacecraft commander for Apollo 16.
Haise is best known, perhaps, for his role as the lunar module module pilot in the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission. Scheduled to spend ten days in a hilly region of the Moon, the failure of the oxygen system some 55 hours into flight caused the crew – Haise, James Lovell, and John Swigart – to attempt to return to earth through a courageous control of resources and training.
In the movie “Apollo 13,” Haise was portrayed by actor Bill Paxton.
Some years before, Fred Haise had made Mansfield his home. From October 1961 to August 1962, he was a tactical fighter pilot and was chief of the 164th Standarization-Evaluation Flight of the 164th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Mansfield Lahm.
Having retired in 1979, Haise is now 92 years old and has seen the movie Apollo 13 on many occasions. He has received many honors and is a member of the International Space Hall of Fame, the Aerospace Walk of Honor, and the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.
Photo: Apollo 13 crew the day before launch with Fred Haise on the right; Public Domain
