Fred Haise Honored at Aerospace Appreciation Night

Retired NASA astronaut and test pilot Fred Haise was honored recently by the Lancaster, California, Jethawks baseball team during its Aerospace Appreciation Night.

Haise is best known as one of the three Apollo 13 astronauts who survived a potential space tragedy when an oxygen tank on their Apollo service module exploded on their 1970 lunar mission. Haise was recognized during pre-game ceremonies by the Jethawks, and then threw out the first pitch before the team's California League game against the San Jose Giants.

Haise was joined on the field by retired NASA astronaut Gordon Fullerton, with whom he flew three of the five approach and landing tests of the prototype space shuttle orbiter Enterprise in 1977, and the two NASA research pilots, Fitzhugh Fulton and Tom McMurtry, who flew the modified Boeing 747 shuttle carrier aircraft that carried Enterprise aloft for the flights.

The occasion was also marked by a giveaway of bobble-head dolls in Haise' likeness to baseball fans, and an aerial salute by a F/A-18 from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, where Haise had served as a test pilot in the mid-1960s before becoming an astronaut.

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