During a formal dedication ceremony in August 1973, Kraft hosted the former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson and other family members. Johnson Space Center following the death of President Johnson, who was instrumental in the founding of NASA in 1958 and a strong supporter of the agency and its programs throughout his political career. Nixon signed a Senate resolution renaming MSC as NASA’s Lyndon B. Nixon, center, during his visit to JSC to present awards to the Skylab 4 crew in March 1974. Right: Kraft, right, with President Richard M. Kraft, right, with the former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, at the ceremony renaming the Manned Spacecraft Center after President Lyndon B. Left: Johnson Space Center (JSC) Director Christopher C. Kraft was still center director when Skylab made an uncontrolled reentry over the Indian Ocean and Australia in July 1979. The following year saw the launch of the Skylab space station, and although damaged at launch, ground crews put together repair plans that the astronauts implemented that enabled them to set new flight duration records and conduct unprecedented research on the human body, solar physics, and Earth observations. Right: In the MCC in May 1973, Kraft, fourth from right, huddling with flightĭirectors and managers shortly after the Skylab space station suffered damage during its launch.ĭuring his first year as center director, Kraft oversaw the final two Moon landing missions, Apollo 16 and 17, in April and December 1972, respectively, bringing to a close the first period of lunar exploration. Griffin, who would succeed Kraft as center director, during the Apollo 17 launch delay, as Kraft’s technical assistant and future center director George W.S. Middle: In December 1972, in MSC’s Mission Control Center (MCC), Kraft, second from left, confers with Flight Directors M.P. Kraft, the second director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. Left: Official portrait of Christopher C. Center Director Gilruth named Kraft as his deputy in November 1969, and Kraft succeeded him upon his retirement in January 1972. In 1968, Kraft retired as a flight director, overseeing the Apollo missions as director of flight operations. In 1965, control of America’s human spaceflights shifted to the newly-built Mission Control Center (MCC) at MSC in Houston, where Kraft continued to serve as flight director, along with additional flight directors selected to support the longer Gemini missions. Kraft developed the concept of mission control, first established in the Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida, and served as the flight director for the Mercury missions. After conducting aeronautical research for more than a decade, in 1958 Kraft joined the Space Task Group, the team led by Robert Gilruth within the newly-established NASA, charged with putting the first Americans in space. Kraft began his lengthy public service career in 1944 when he joined the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA’s predecessor organization, after graduating from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. ![]() Kraft (January 1972 to August 1982)Ĭhristopher C. The Project Management Building, known today as Building 1, with its four flagpoles, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in November 2021.Ĭhristopher C. ![]() For more information about the directors who led first the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) and now JSC, please visit Johnson Space Center Directors | NASA. This article focuses on the time from the last two Apollo Moon landings through the early years of the space shuttle, to shortly after the Challenger accident, and the three men who led JSC through the of triumphs and the tragedy. The articles in the series provide information about the 13 unique individuals who have led JSC over the past 60 years and continue to lead us into the future of human exploration. Their varied activities have included leading management meetings, greeting astronauts after their return from space, dedicating new facilities, meeting with local politicians, world leaders, and celebrities, and many other tasks to maintain America’s leadership in human spaceflight. The primary function of Johnson Space Center’s (JSC) directors has been to lead the world’s premier human spaceflight facility and the civil service and contractor employees who conduct the work of the center on behalf of the agency. The first installment of this series described the Project Management Building from its initial groundbreaking in 1963 through first occupancy in 1964 and some major changes since then, and the term of the center’s first director, Robert R.
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