NASA Office of Logic Design

NASA Office of Logic Design

A scientific study of the problems of digital engineering for space flight systems,
with a view to their practical solution.

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Managing the Moon Program
 Lessons Learned From Project Apollo

Figures

 

Howard W. (Bill) Tindall Jr. was responsible for planning all 10 Gemini missions. He was an expert in orbital mechanics and a key figure in the development of rendezvous techniques for Gemini and lunar trajectory techniques for Apollo. He was also the inventor of "Tindallgrams," memos that captured the details of Apollo operations planning. He retired from NASA in 1979.
Christopher C. Kraft Jr. was a long-standing official with NASA throughout the Apollo program. In 1958, while at the Langley Research Center, he became a member of the Space Task Group developing Project Mercury, and he later moved with the Group to Houston in 1962. He was flight director for all of the Mercury and many of the Gemini missions and directed the design of Mission Control at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), later designated Johnson Space Center. He was named the MSC deputy director in 1970 and director two years later, a position he held until his retirement in 1982.
Owen W. Morris worked at the Langley Research Center from 1948 until the Space Task Group moved to Houston, Texas, in 1962. He worked for NASA during Apollo's entirety Morris was chief engineer of the lunar module, manager of the lunar module, and later the manager of the Apollo program office.
George E. Mueller was NASA's associate administrator for manned space flight from 1963 to 1969. As such, he was responsible for overseeing the completion of Project Apollo and beginning the development of the Space Shuttle. He left NASA in 1969.
Maxime A. Faget joined the Space Task Group in NASA in 1958. He became NASA Manned Spacecraft Center's (designated the Johnson Space Center in 1973) assistant director for engineering and development in 1962 and later its director. Faget contributed many of the original design concepts for Project Mercury's spacecraft and played a major role in designing virtually every U.S. crewed spacecraft since then, including the Space Shuttle.
Robert R. Gilruth served as assistant director at Langley from 1952 to 1959 and as assistant director (rnanned satellites) and head of Project Mercury from 1959 to 1961. In early 1961 an independent Space, Task Group was established under Gilruth at Langley to supervise the Mercury program. This group moved to the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, in 1962. Gilruth was then director of the Houston operation from 1962 to 1972.

 

Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, director NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, second from left, in Antarctica at "Project Deep Freeze, " with (left to right) Dr. Faget, Dr. von Braun, two Deep Freeze scientists, and Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger. (NASA Photo 11-12818.)

Left to right - Eugene F. Kranz, deputy director of flight operations; Christopher C. Kraft; and Maxime A. Faget at Mission Control in Houston. (NASA Photo 81-H-365; S-81-30139.)

 

Dr. George E Mueller, associate administrator for the Office of Manned Space Flight, with Lt. Gen. Samuel C. Philips, director of the Apollo Program, in Firing Room 1 of the Launch Control Center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. (NASA Photo 69-H-1064; 107-KSC-69P-574.)

Dr. Christopher C. Kraft, director, Johnson Space Center. July 1976, is assisted into a developmental Space Shuttle pressure garment. The JSC-developed space suit is a two-piece, adjustable to fit modular design suit, sized small, medium, and large to fit crew members of either sex. (NASA Photo S-76-26409.)

 
Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, director, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, with the Snoopy poster, May 11, 1969.  (Houston Chronicle Photo, May 11, 1969.)

 
Dr. Christopher C. Kraft director Johnson Space Center after the unveiling of the L.B. Johnson bust, reads the citation to Mrs. L.B. Johnson during the 1973 dedication services for naming the Spacecraft Center after the former president. (NASA Photo 73-H-853.)

 

Howard W Tindall, Jr., second from right, and, left to right, Bill Schneider, Chris Kraft, and Sig Sjoberg monitor a problem with the Command Service Module used to transport the Skylab 3 crew to the orbiting Skylab space station cluster. (NASA Photo S-73-31875.)

 

Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop
Conducted July 21, 1989

Moderator: John M Logsdon

Participants:

Monographs in Aerospace history
Number 14

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