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Paul Haney | Mission Control voice, 80

Paul Haney, 80, known as the "voice of NASA's Mission Control" for his live televised reports during the early years of the space program, died Thursday in Alamogordo, N.M., of complications from melanoma.

Paul Haney, 80, known as the "voice of NASA's Mission Control" for his live televised reports during the early years of the space program, died Thursday in Alamogordo, N.M., of complications from melanoma.

Mr. Haney became NASA's information officer in 1958, three months after the space agency was formed, and went on to manage information from the Gemini and Apollo flight programs. He pioneered a system of reporting events as they happened in the first manned flight program, Project Mercury.

Mr. Haney 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 Center. He worked in the Mission Control Center, where he broadcast live to television viewers nationwide and to media covering the launches.

He retired from NASA in 1969 after the Apollo 9 mission. - AP