In this very special episode, we pay tribute to two legends: Dr. Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. and NASA's historic Mission Operations Control Room number 2 (aka MOCR 2). Dr. Kraft passed away on July 22, two days after America celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. Kraft was the man who literally invented the concept of flight control for NASA from the first American space flights of Project Mercury from 1961-63 through Project Gemini and Apollo culminating with the nine lunar missions from 1968-1972.
The room that was "Houston" to the Apollo astronauts was MOCR 2 where Kraft and his teams of flight controllers oversaw iconic missions like the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon at Christmas, the Apollo 11 first landing and the near disaster of Apollo 13 when the men in that room literally saved the lives of the three astronauts.
The mission control room had fallen into disrepair after being decommissioned in 1992 but an amazing restoration effort, completed just in time for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, has returned the room to its full glory -- a virtual time capsule from the summer of 1969. Dave interviews Sandra Tetley, the NASA Historical Preservation Officer who oversaw the meticulous effort to bring MOCR 2 back to life for visitors to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Fittingly, the building that houses MOCR 2, is the Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center building that is best known by the call sign "Houston."
We also hear from one of the flight directors that worked under Dr. Kraft and eventually succeeded him as Director of the Johnson Space Center in the early 1980s, Gerry Griffin. Griffin shares his reminiscences of the man who was the first to be called, "Flight."
