The engineer Chris Kraft controlled the Apollo moon landings. He was also Nasa’s first flight director. Chris was director of flight operations at Nasa when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their lunar landing with Apollo 11 mission on 20 July 1969 and signed off with the Apollo 12 moon mission that November. Kraft returned in 1970 to chair the crisis meeting as the crippled Apollo 13 limped back to Earth.
Throughout the Apollo program, Kraft became the Director of Flight Operations at MSC, responsible for overall human spaceflight mission planning, execution, and training. His leadership in this critical area extended through the Apollo 12 mission in 1969 when he became deputy director of the Center.
Who Was Chris Kraft?
Christopher C. Kraft Jr. was Nasa’s first flight director, the man who shaped the team – and the control center – at Cape Canaveral in Florida and, from 1963, in Houston, Texas. Christopher C. Kraft Jr. served as the center director from January 1972 until his retirement in August 1982. Chris played an important role in the final Apollo missions’ success, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the Skylab crewed space station, and the space shuttle’s first flights.
A Short Chris Kraft Biography
Chris was born on February 28, 1924, in Phoebus, Virginia. It is now a part of Hampton, Va. He attended high school and developed great interests in non-aeronautical subjects such as baseball, bugle corps, and drum. Unlike numerous of his aerospace peers later in his career, Kraft wasn’t interested in airplanes.
After graduating from high school, Chris wanted to attend college but didn’t know where or what he should study. Finally, Chris chose the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and registered in mechanical engineering in 1941. Chris attributes his experiences in the military Corps of Cadets at the Institute to the foundation of his leadership training that would later define his NASA career personality.
1942, the VPI campus was being drained of students because of the war effort, and Kraft patriotically chose to join the Navy as an aviation cadet. Unfortunately, his right hand had been burned when he was about three years old, so he was declared unfit for military service.
Chris Kraft and his wife, Betty Anne, were married in 1950. They had a son, Gordon, and a daughter, Kristi-Anne.
Chris Kraft And VPI Baseball Team
His old hand injuries did not hinder his athletic prowess. Chris played as a catcher on the VPI baseball team. Next, a professor in the engineering department was an avid airplane devotee and passed his interest on young Chris.
This was an elective course in basic aerodynamics, and it inspired him to be major in aeronautical engineering. In 1944, Chris graduated with one of the first degrees ever in that field awarded by the famous Institute.
Chris was accustomed to the federal National Advisory Committee’s work on Aeronautics (NASA’s predecessor agency) at Langley, located only about 7 miles from his home. Nevertheless, Kraft felt that Langley was too close to home and took a job offer from Chance Vought in Connecticut, with a back-up offer from the NACA.
After enduring first-day bureaucratic frustration at Vought, he opted to take his back-up offer. Consequently, in January 1945, Chris returned to Virginia to join the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory personnel. Chris was assigned to the Flight Research Division under Hewitt Phillips and Robert Gilruth’s leadership, men he held in awe.
He contributed to many critical programs conceived by Robert Gilruth, including evaluations of the flying characteristics of different aircraft and free-fall model tests to measure supersonic and transonic aerodynamics.
Kraft And Navy’s Vought F8U Crusader
Kraft served as project engineer on flying-qualities investigations of the P-51H, an advanced version of the famous Mustang. Chris also conducted analytical work on gust alleviation and directed a pioneering study of potentially dangerous wake turbulence caused by trailing vortices.
With the coming of the jet age of the 1950s, Kraft was now assigned as project engineer on flight tests of the Navy’s Vought F8U Crusader, which was presenting many birthing problems in its earliest versions. The issues uncovered by Langley’s flight tests included unacceptable g-force control behavior during maneuvers.
Who Was Flight Director For Mercury?
Christopher Kraft was the flight director for the Mercury Project. And in the photo below, you can see Christopher Kraft, flight director during Project Mercury, working at his console inside the Flight Control area at Mercury Mission Control in Houston.
Kraft’s Warnings
This was confirmed to result from accidental pivoting of the unique movable wing used by the configuration. Operating with Langley test pilot Jack Reeder, Chris identified the structural source of the problem. He took on the bothersome job of explaining to the Navy that its new first-line aircraft was probably dangerous.
Kraft’s warnings were noticed by Navy management, ending in the F8U fleet’s grounding, much to the shame of many operators of the new aircraft. Chris then encountered one of the most combative members of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, questioning the Langley results and questioned the conclusions drawn by the NACA.
This famous marine Major was the legendary John Glenn. Following a thorough examination of the Langley study results with Chris and Reeder and meetings with Navy pilots who flew the aircraft, John was changed and became a believer. The F8U was consequently redesigned, as recommended by Chris and his associates at Langley, and served the nation as an exceptional fighter during the Vietnam War.
“Flight: My Life in Mission Control”
Since Chris retired from NASA, Kraft has consulted for many companies, including Rockwell International, IBM, and as a prestigious member of the Board of Visitors at Virginia Tech and served as a Director-at-Large of the Houston Chamber of Commerce. In 2001, Chris published an autobiography entitled “Flight: My Life in Mission Control.” His book is a thorough discussion of his life through the Apollo program’s end and was also a New York Times bestseller.
Chris has received many awards and honors for his work. These include the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal; four NASA Distinguished Service Medals; the John J. Montgomery Award, in 1963; the Distinguished Alumnus Citation from Virginia Tech in 1965; the Distinguished Citizen Award, given by the City of Hampton, Virginia, in 1966; the Goddard Memorial Trophy, awarded by the National Space Club, in 1979; and the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award for 1996. In 1999, Kraft was presented with the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement.
Chris Kraft And the Apollo Program
During the Apollo program, Chris Kraft became the Director of Flight Operations at MSC. He was responsible for overall human-crewed spaceflight mission planning, training, and execution. Chris’s leadership in this crucial area proceeded through the Apollo 12 mission in 1969, at which time he was Deputy Director of the Center.
Kraft served as the Center Director from January 1972 to his retirement in August 1982. He was playing an essential role in the success of the final Apollo missions. He was also involved in the first human-crewed space station (Skylab), the first international space docking (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project), and the Space Shuttle’s first flights.
NASA Honored Chris Kraft
In 2006, NASA honored Chris Kraft for his significant engagement in America’s space programs. He was awarded the Ambassador of Exploration Award to astronauts and other key individuals who engaged in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs to acknowledge the United States’s vision of space exploration from 1961 to 1972.
Furthermore, on April 4, 2011, NASA designated its Building 30 Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Chris Kraft’s honor to acknowledge his service to the nation and its space programs. The Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. Mission Control Center has operated for 51 years to support space missions. At the naming ceremony, Flight Director Glynn Lunney commented, “The Control Center today is a reflection of Chris Kraft.” Chris married his high school sweetheart, Betty Anne Turnbull, in 1950. They have together a daughter and a son, Kristi-Anne and Gordon.
Thanks for reading this article about the famous Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., the man who created the concept of NASA’s Mission Control and developed its organization, operational procedures, and culture. If you want to know more about another great flight Director, then head over to this article: Flight Director Gene Kranz—”It Was Go or No Go.”
