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Chris Kraft, 1st flight director for NASA, dies at 95

Wow!! The loss of a true icon in Nasa's manned space program. I read his book years ago and it was very interesting. Now I want to read it again. He lived a very interesting and long life

RIP Chris Kraft!
 
I remember reading Failure is Not An Option (Gene Krantz's book) and remarking that 30 years later (when I read it) and in a BOOK that Krantz still seemed intimidated by Craft. Remarkable man.

I also can't help but wonder if he held on for the 50th?

I haven't read his book and I should.
 
Public Service Broadcasting dedicated their performance of the song "Go" to him during their BBC Proms show at the Albert Hall.
Played the album "The Race For Space" (I think that was the title) in it's entirety, celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Apollo 11
 
My favorite Chris Kraft moment of all time was in a PBS documentary called "Moonshot"
When Deke Slayton finally got the chance to fly on ASTP (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project) and the question of his heart fibrilation still came up

"We knew more about Deke Slayton's heart than anyone who ever flew. But that god da*n doctor stood up in the meeting and said "We know all that, but if he fibrilates on the pad, we should stop the count"... and I FIRED that son of a b*tch!"
- Chris Kraft
 
(from the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, which BTW I highly recommend)

"Rendezvous: two spacecraft meeting up in orbit. Want to have fun? Come over to my house. You stand in the back yard, I'll stand in the front, you throw a tennis ball over my roof and I'll try to hit it with a rock as it comes sailing over. That's what we're going to have to do. "
 
Mr. Laser Beam said:
(from the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, which BTW I highly recommend)

"Rendezvous: two spacecraft meeting up in orbit. Want to have fun? Come over to my house. You stand in the back yard, I'll stand in the front, you throw a tennis ball over my roof and I'll try to hit it with a rock as it comes sailing over. That's what we're going to have to do. "
Click to expand...
its one step worse than that, you not only have to hit it with the rock, but at just the right speed and angle so they just barely tap with no hard impact. Anybody who has played Kerbal Space Program can attest to how difficult that can be, especially when you are going for a quick first-orbit rendezvous.
 
"He was the mentor, the teacher, the tutor. Chris Kraft was the architect, not only of Mission Control, but basically the entire concept of spaceflight operations"
- Gene Kranz

You don't realize that basically everything that existed in how spacecraft operate, are controlled, and how missions are managed all began with Chris Kraft. Kraft was to Mission Control what Von Braun was to modern rocketry, what Benjamin Franklin was to electricity, what Euclid was to Geometry, what Sir Issac Newton was to Physics. I feel without Chris Kraft, there wouldn't have been NASA as we know it, and we may not have even reached the moon when we did. Yes, thousands of people designed and built the machines, yes hundreds have flown the various spacecraft, but they are the orchestra. Kraft was the conductor.
 
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