The extraordinary autobiography of astronaut Fred Haise, one of only twenty-four men to fly to the moon.
In the gripping Never Panic Early, Fred Haise, Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 13, offers a detailed firsthand account of when disaster struck three days into his mission to the moon. An oxygen tank exploded, a crewmate uttered the now iconic words, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and the world anxiously watched as one of history’s most incredible rescue missions unfolded. Haise brings listeners into the heart of his experience on the challenging mission—considered NASA’s finest hour—and reflects on his life and career as an Apollo astronaut.
In this personal and illuminating memoir, Haise takes an introspective look at the thrills and triumphs, regrets and disappointments, and lessons that defined his career, including his years as a military fighter pilot and his successful twenty-year NASA career that would have made him the sixth man on the moon had Apollo 13 gone right.
Many of his stories navigate fear, hope, and resilience, like when he crashed while ferrying a World War II air show aircraft and suffered second and third-degree burns over sixty-five percent of his body, putting him in critical condition for ten days before making a heroic recovery. In Never Panic Early, Haise explores what it was like to work for NASA in its glory years and demonstrates a true ability to deal with the unexpected.
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“[With] blunt, often humorous candor, Never Panic Early is the consummate story of how one man overcame enough adversity to fill several lifetimes but ceaselessly kept moving forward.”
— Ad Astra magazine
“A triumphant story of survival.”
— Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 astronaut“A straightforward autobiography about a man who will be forever linked with Apollo 13, but whose career in the military, at NASA, and in industry goes far beyond that single spaceflight.”
— Space Review“Haise’s passion for flying is unmistakable…This is an illuminating personal history of NASA’s space program.”
— Publishers Weekly“Dense with detail of the day-to-day reality of being a Marine pilot, engineer, and astronaut…it’s a down-to-Earth counterpoint to the typical dramatizations about the space race."
— BooklistBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Fred Haise served as a backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 before serving as the Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 13 mission. He worked with NASA for nine years after Apollo 13, serving on the backup crew for Apollo 16, commanding free flight test missions for the Space Shuttle program, and was scheduled to command Apollo 19 before its cancellation. He left NASA in 1979 to work as an executive for Grumman Aerospace Corp.
Joe Barrett, an actor and Audie Award and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared both on and off Broadway as well as in hundreds of radio and television commercials.