NOVA; To the Moon; Interview with Fred Haise, Jr., NASA astronaut during the Apollo 13 mission, part 1 of 3

Okay, Fred, tell me about, Tom Kelly said that you knew more about a limb than just about anybody. What was your role in the design of a limb in the application of a limb? Well, I had very little to do with the design where I ended the program, limbs were already being built and we're entering the test phase in the factory. And I did spend a lot of time. Actually it was myself, Ed Mitchell and Jim Irwin, and I support crew assignments, drew the lunar module as one of our primary areas. Also Jerry Carish, you mentioned. In fact, in one 17-month period I was at Grumman 14 months of that 17 months involved in testing the vehicle. When you say I knew more about the limb, I probably knew more than I needed to know the fly it. Because in testing you're involved in troubleshooting open shorts, all kinds of anomalies and systems that are just a part of the process of getting it, if you will, debugged and already qualified for flight. A lot of what I did knowing what wires went through, what connectors really had very little bearing to my role then as a pilot

and as a national fly the vehicle. Now, you know, it's the most unlikely looking flying craft in the world. Was it a good flying craft? It was a remarkable flying craft considering the change in configuration. Of course the shape did not matter. Its lifetime was going to be spent in vacuum, so you didn't have to worry about the air stream or aerodynamics. But you consider it started as an old 36, 37,000-pound vehicle. So a fairly heavy vehicle almost might see an airplane since almost like a transport. And then by the time you landed it had used a lot of a decent, decent fuel, so it was a relatively light. And of course when it lifted off with just a small acid stage, which I think Barack Al was like 6,500 pounds, it now is like a spiffy little fighter aircraft. And the small 100-pound jet you had really almost overpowered it in that state if you had to fly it in a direct mode.

How did you like flying it? Well, I liked it a lot because we needed it. We needed it badly. Of course we never got to fly it in the call it in a normal mode of flight where it would be separated from the command and service module. And you really, to maintain attitude or adjust attitude, you do it totally different when you're docked. Then if you were undocked, in fact it was quite a compromise in using a combination of the hand controller for yaw. And you use the translation controller either in and out for a pitch control or left and right for translation to do roll control for the total stack. So it was kind of abnormal. Well, we're jumping ahead a little bit, but I do want to ask you that knowledge you had of the limb. Did you have a lot of knowledge of the limb and is that part of what saved your life in 13? No, I would not say that in depth knowledge I had.

It turned out we didn't have to resplice wires or take anything really apart. What it did for me though was it gave me a lot of confidence, personal confidence and knowing the vehicle and feeling that it could do what we knew it had to do, which was quite a stretch of its specifications. So it helped me in that way. The only time otherwise it probably helped knowing if that well and that probably anybody with this the normal training for flight and trained adequately. Was the very quick power up we had to do. We had to do an ad-libbed power up not following normal power up procedures. We used it as a guide, but to cut the time short we deleted things as we were going through that power up and talking to mission control and getting an agreement we could delete pages or half pages that allowed us to get it powered up as quickly as we did. Let me ask you about the off of 13 per second Apollo one the fire.

Where were you when you heard about it? What went through you mind? Apollo one I was at Grumman. In fact I just come out of the test in the clean room or the white room and come through the tunnel we had that took us to a trailer. That was often our living quarters we had double deck bunks and would sleep in there we had a shower. I was called by a Jim McDevitt. With the time I was supporting I was a support crew for Apollo 9 and Jim called me and told me and it wasn't a very long conversation just what had happened and I should come back to Houston. And of course I was you know it's one of these things like often before where I've been in the flight test business we've had aircraft accidents. And I will say it's shocking because you expect things like that to happen they do happen. But it's a sad thing obviously and said in this particular circumstance where they were so close to flight. And hopefully I was not following the command module so I didn't know that part of it but seemingly within literally a few weeks of getting the thing off that this had to happen.

Did it change the program? Oh yes obviously there was a lot of scrutiny through the the action investigation and out of that came as usually happens out of accidents changes sometimes change in this case changes to design or changes to procedures or what be what was the lessons learned. What that tells you so both vehicles were changed considerably probably the command module had more changes with a new hatch design. But materialized as far as the wiring and the wiring insulation the potting on connectors all the material that was potentially flammable and a cockpit of either vehicle all of that was altered. Cut for a second how you doing? How did you feel about doing geology and science?

In my background I had never had a course in geology and so barely knew it other than the definition. In our first year though is called the rookie astronauts we did get quite a number of field trips so we got exposure we had classroom work even some if you want to call it some lab type work within sections. But in that period before I ever got to a mission assignment I was quite interested in the subject and really would impress me about geology and in a way you think of spaces as distance and geology have to think of increment of time. Time is huge when you think of any rock formation or like the Grand Canyon the very first trip we were taken on because it was such a simple structure to look at in a layer cake form. It's over a bay in years representing the rocks from the top of the Grand Canyon to the bottom the bottom exposed out crowd. So I had a feeling of of call it enjoyment in geology and in field exercises are fun.

And really as we got then into the mission mode or I did it was part of mission in fact it was the primary reason you're going certainly after the first one. I mean the first one kind of met the goal of put people on the moon and get them back within a decade so thereafter it was what you're going to do when you got there that really counted. That reflected I think in the patch that we created for Apollo 13 rather put our names on it we put excellent sense which was you know from the moon science was part of the symbol symbology on our patch that was created. It was in my mind a very enjoyable I actually worked on four crews I was back up on three crews and I don't know the exact count but I know I had over 30 field trips through my evolution during the Apollo program. Was everybody all we're all the astronauts in favor of doing it?

I can't really tell you as far as our crew Jim Jim was certainly behind and that was part of the process and the way we started our training of course Jim had been involved in Germany had flown two flights. And also John Young who was the backup commander in a similar way had been two flights in Germany so they hadn't had that experience even that we had had at that point as rookies. So Jack Schmidt came up with the idea of talking Lee Silver who's a teacher a professor he knew at Caltech to try to get us quickly up to speed or get predominantly Jim and John Young far along as we could. And so the first thing we we did as a crew and it was priming back up was really go camp out in the air coat mountains which are just off the salt and sea in the California. And I mean really camped out we slept on cats open air cooked and really I didn't shave for I think we had four days out there.

And we did geology from when we woke up at dawn and could get breakfast some form breakfast down to go through three two three four exercise a day till it got dark and then talk geology around campfire till 10 at night. So we did that every day for four days we use Polaroid cameras rather than is got more sophisticated later with use equipment and those field exercises but then we use Polaroid cameras to document. That could be used because after each of these exercises we were debriefed by Lee and really I say coach to critique a little of both on what we had not picked up and not seen not observed and and not described that we should have and as we he said you know the field area that we were to survey. And that was the exercise exercise was not to make us the world's world beater on an ultimate solution a geologic solution of an area. It was to make us good observers to know in context of trying to describe what's what's happened here and how things have formed.

What were the type of objects and type of outcrops and type of rocks that you should try to observe describe and document with photography. To best help the real experts figure out what really had gone on. It's great terrific. You've been great. This is good. Having Jack Schmidt on the moon he knew how they knew how he knew how the geologist thought right. He was a geologist a very good one and so the conversation between them was totally understood and when when when Schmidt says I think we should do this for this this and this reason there was no reason to question that he wasn't doing it for any other reason and geology. Right. Precisely. I mean, Cernan was his helper and that's the way he looked at it. I think you ask him. I think he would probably say that. Yeah. Well, he was commanding when he got back in the ship.

Okay. Before that one wrap up question. When we talk about LOR, I just want to know you did that affect your job here in mission control going LOR versus going the other two modes before we roll. I just want to know. Yeah, I think it probably made the mission more complex from an operational point of view. Okay. Here we go. He would have separated right there. So you had an argument with Neil Armstrong about this, you know, about Luna. We had an argument. We had a discussion of of the need for the landing radar. Well, his position was he want to make that decision after he got there. I mean, how do I know I need it? I said, I know you need it. So that's the reason that mission rules says that the landing radar is not working. We're coming back.

I'm not sure I ever convinced him. Okay. They're ready to go. Let's go on up there. That's where we're going to. Thank you, Sean. Could you just unplug this a second? So you want to ask. Let's unplug the. Oh, did you. No, that's okay. This is voice over. What were you saying about Apollo, Apollo missions and mission control? What I said was that except for Apollo 17, the spacecraft landing on the moon would not have taken place without the value and the capability of the mission control center to intercede and fix something in the spacecraft that would have prohibited from doing so. In every mission from Apollo 11 through Apollo 16.

Okay.