Paul Haney
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Paul Haney, who died on 28 May aged 80, was known as Nasa's "voice of Mission Control" for his live televised reports during the early years of the space programme.
Haney became Nasa's information officer in 1958 and went on to manage information from the Gemini and Apollo flight programmes. He pioneered a real-time system of reporting events as they happened in the first manned flight programme, Project Mercury.
Haney was born in 1928 in Akron, Ohio, and earned a journalism degree from Kent State University in 1945. He served in the Navy for two years during the Korean War. He became the public affairs officer for the Office of Manned Space Flight in 1962 and moved to Houston to work in what became the Johnson Space Centre. During his time there, he worked in the Mission Control Centre.
Haney left Nasa in 1969 following the Apollo 9 mission, after becoming involved in a dispute at the Manned Spacecraft Centre between the engineers and astronauts, who wanted to maintain as much privacy as possible during flights, and the press. He came to in London, where he covered the moon landings for ITN: "I don't have the shape and face for this thing," he said of his new, on-screen role. "My face is like a Hallowe'en mask."
Partly thanks to Haney, ITN's coverage of the landing was a huge success, the independent network beating BBC in the ratings.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments