In the early 1960s, when Thomas J. Kelly, who died on March 23, 2002, after a 6-year battle with pulmonary fibrosis, was just past the age of 30, his mechanical engineering and propulsion concepts and designs helped shape NASA’s plans for the Apollo missions. Thomas J. Kelly was the engineer who led the team that designed and built the Lunar Module (LM) that landed Apollo astronauts on the Moon.
And for his outstanding contributions to NASA’s Apollo Program, he became known as “the Father of the Lunar Module.” In recognition of his achievements, the board of directors of the Grumman Aerospace Corporation elected him a vice president in May 1971.
Who was Thomas Kelly?
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 14, 1929, and raised in Bellmore, New York, Mr. Kelly was one of the winners in 1946 of a Grumman engineering scholarship. With this scholarship, he earned a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from Cornell University in 1951.
He continued his education at Columbia University, from which he earned a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1956. Mr. Kelly further pursued graduate studies at Ohio University and the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
And in 1969, he won a Sloan Fellowship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1970 received a Master of Science degree in Industrial Management from the Institute.
Career Summary
- Grumman 1951
- Air Force 1956
- Lockheed 1958
- Return to Grumman 1959-1992
Mr. Kelly began his career at Grumman as an apprentice engineer during the summers of his undergraduate years. After completing his studies at Cornell University, he became a full-time corporate employee in the Rigel Missile Program as a propulsion engineer.
From 1953 to 1956, Kelly was a jet air induction group leader on the F11F and F11F-1F programs. From 1956 to 1958, he served as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, assigned as a performance engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, where he worked on the prototype B-58, F-105, and Hound Dog Missile programs.
Who Was the Project Leader on the Apollo and Lunar Module studies and proposals?
After completing his military service, Mr. Kelly worked for one year at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation as a group leader in rocket propulsion development. Returning to Grumman in 1959, Mr. Kelly was assigned Assistant Chief of Propulsion.
He was made Engineering Project Leader on the Apollo and Lunar Module studies and proposals a year later. In November 1962, Mr. Kelly was promoted to LM project engineer and, in succeeding years, was assigned increasing responsibilities and authority in the LM Program.
“Lifeboat” capabilities in the LM
Under his leadership, Grumman’s recommendations for designing “lifeboat” capabilities into the LM would prove fateful. The LM’s capabilities would save the lives of the three astronauts of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank ruptured in the service module, rendering the Command Module uninhabitable as the mission approached the Moon.
Later work
After his work on the Apollo and Lunar Module, Mr. Kelly served in a series of assignments in Grumman’s Aircraft Systems and Data Systems divisions, including director of Space Programs and vice president of Information Resource Management. In 1991, he was elected president of the Space Station Integration division. Mr. Kelly retired from Grumman Aerospace in December 1992.
Kelly’s book “Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module.”
Tom was the project engineer, engineering manager, and deputy program manager for Grumman Aircraft’s Apollo Lunar Module from 1962 to 1970. And in his book from 2001, Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module, he documents the process of designing, building, and flying the Lunar Module. Get your own book here: “Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module.”
To sum it all up, Grumman built 15 lunar modules. However, only six of them had the opportunity to land on the Moon’s surface. Each one of these Lunar modules had significant upgrades compared to the last one. The Lunar Module is among the most important accomplishments of Tom Kelly’s career because it is still the only spacecraft that humans have flown to another celestial body.
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