Engineering & Technology Week's Banquet Speaker

Apollo 13 Astronaut - Mr. Fred W. Haise

Mr. Fred Wallace Haise, Apollo 13 Astronaut, will be this year's keynote speaker during the Awards Banquet for the 2019 Engineering and Technology Week.

Mr. Wallace is an American former NASA astronaut, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force and test pilot.  He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, having flown as LUnar Module Pilot on Apollo 13.

A little history:  HOUSTON, WE"VE HAD A PROBLEM

For four days in 1970, Apollo 13 astronauts Fred Haise, Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert had just about the entire civilized world holding its collective breath. Originally scheduled to land on the moon, the Apollo 13 mission experienced a setback approximately 55 hours after launch when the cryogenic oxygen system on the service module failed. The failure forced Haise and his fellow crewmembers to abandon plans to land on the moon. Instead, they turned Apollo 13's lunar module into a lifeboat, flew around the moon and returned to Earth.

With the world nervously waiting, Haise and company successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 17, 1970

Though the Apollo 13 mission didn't achieve its objective, it's since become the stuff of legend. In 1995, director Ron Howard dramatized the real-life events in the film "Apollo 13," which starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon and Bill Paxton (who portrayed Haise).

Apollo 13 Astronauts: (from left) Fred W. Haise, Jr., John L. Swigert, Jr., and James A. Lovell, Jr., standing on board the USS Iwo Jima after their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, April, 17, 1970.