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astronaut memoirs: a supplement
Jan. 6th, 2026 04:25 amBack in 2021, I reviewed here the memoirs of every moonshot-era astronaut who'd written one. Soon afterwards, another one came out that I didn't find out about until recently. So I'm adding it.
Fred Haise (Apollo 13, STS-ALT-9, 11, 12, 14, 16), Never Panic Early: An Apollo 13 Astronaut's Journey, with Bill Moore (Smithsonian Books, 2022)
Fairly brief as these memoirs go. Haise says that at the time he was wrapped up in the nitty-gritty details of his job, and that's what this book is like too. There are occasional piercing insights into astronaut personalities (Jim Lovell under the stress of Apollo 13 started to act like the martinet Frank Borman) or of what experiences felt like to Haise, and excursions into externalities like what his living situation was like (e.g. napping in the simulator because it was too much trouble to take the time to go back to his hotel room), but no emotional reactions to problems - that's the point of his title, which he takes as a frequently-repeated personal motto - and though he notes the births of his children, there's virtually nothing about his life with them or his wife.
That's because he was so busy working he didn't have one, and that, he says, is the reason he eventually got divorced: no connection with his family. But Haise's workaholic attitude has its virtues in this book. Like other astronauts, he found that flying came naturally to him when he first undertook it, but unlike most he goes into detail about what learning to do it actually consisted of. His detail on the Apollo 13 mission is a useful supplement to the movie version, but he only mentions the movie once briefly and makes no direct comparisons or corrections.
After Apollo 13, Haise plunges into equal detail on the subsequent publicity junkets before going back to work on flight training, including flying many of the space shuttle's approach and landing tests, though he retired from NASA before any actual shuttle missions flew, then going to work as an administrator for the aerospace firm that he knew well because they'd built the lunar module. He also recounts the detail of his gruesome medical recovery from a plane crash.
But the hasty tone and lack of some detail remains a flaw. Haise recounts being told, after serving as backup on Apollo 8, that he'd be backup again for Apollo 11, without mentioning that he was bumped from the prime crew (the usual followup) or why - he was pre-empted by the more senior Mike Collins, who returned to flight status following surgery (Collins tells that story apologetically in his book).
previous posts on astronaut memoirs
introduction
Mercury Seven
Next Nine
Group Three
Original Nineteen
Fred Haise (Apollo 13, STS-ALT-9, 11, 12, 14, 16), Never Panic Early: An Apollo 13 Astronaut's Journey, with Bill Moore (Smithsonian Books, 2022)
Fairly brief as these memoirs go. Haise says that at the time he was wrapped up in the nitty-gritty details of his job, and that's what this book is like too. There are occasional piercing insights into astronaut personalities (Jim Lovell under the stress of Apollo 13 started to act like the martinet Frank Borman) or of what experiences felt like to Haise, and excursions into externalities like what his living situation was like (e.g. napping in the simulator because it was too much trouble to take the time to go back to his hotel room), but no emotional reactions to problems - that's the point of his title, which he takes as a frequently-repeated personal motto - and though he notes the births of his children, there's virtually nothing about his life with them or his wife.
That's because he was so busy working he didn't have one, and that, he says, is the reason he eventually got divorced: no connection with his family. But Haise's workaholic attitude has its virtues in this book. Like other astronauts, he found that flying came naturally to him when he first undertook it, but unlike most he goes into detail about what learning to do it actually consisted of. His detail on the Apollo 13 mission is a useful supplement to the movie version, but he only mentions the movie once briefly and makes no direct comparisons or corrections.
After Apollo 13, Haise plunges into equal detail on the subsequent publicity junkets before going back to work on flight training, including flying many of the space shuttle's approach and landing tests, though he retired from NASA before any actual shuttle missions flew, then going to work as an administrator for the aerospace firm that he knew well because they'd built the lunar module. He also recounts the detail of his gruesome medical recovery from a plane crash.
But the hasty tone and lack of some detail remains a flaw. Haise recounts being told, after serving as backup on Apollo 8, that he'd be backup again for Apollo 11, without mentioning that he was bumped from the prime crew (the usual followup) or why - he was pre-empted by the more senior Mike Collins, who returned to flight status following surgery (Collins tells that story apologetically in his book).
previous posts on astronaut memoirs
introduction
Mercury Seven
Next Nine
Group Three
Original Nineteen
