nasa honors legendary flight director

NASA HONORS LEGENDARY FLIGHT DIRECTOR GENE KRANZ

Krantz on Console

Credit NASA

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http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/nov/HQ_M07170_Kranz_Ambassador_Aw

ard.html

TOLEDO, Ohio - NASA will honor Eugene Francis "Gene" Kranz with the

presentation of an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his

involvement in the U.S. space program. Kranz will receive the award

during a ceremony at 2 p.m. CST on Dec. 6 at the Central Catholic

High School.

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The Apollo missions are long past, and hopefully soon a new history will be

created with humans on the Moon.

It is good to remember those that helped make it happen before and hopefully

this will interest the generation coming up to help in the next quest.

What are your kids thinking about?

- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/AofEphotos.html

NASA Ambassador of Exploration Award

The Ambassador of Exploration Award recognizes the sacrifices and

dedication of the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury astronauts. Each astronaut

or their surviving families will be presented a lunar sample, part of

the 842 pounds of moon rocks and soil returned during the six lunar

expeditions from 1969 to 1972.

An inscription describes the rock as "a symbol of the unity of human

endeavor and mandkind's hope for a future of peace and harmony."

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Will this generation of students coming up get similar awards?

Talk it up.

"/Failure Is Not an Option/."

- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/

BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/

RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update

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Nov. 30, 2007

David E. Steitz

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1730

david.steitz@nasa.gov

Michele Jurek

Central Catholic High School, Toledo, Ohio

419-255-2306, ext. 148

mjurek@centralcatholic.org

MEDIA ADVISORY: M07-170

NASA HONORS LEGENDARY FLIGHT DIRECTOR GENE KRANZ

TOLEDO, Ohio - NASA will honor Eugene Francis "Gene" Kranz with the

presentation of an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his

involvement in the U.S. space program. Kranz will receive the award

during a ceremony at 2 p.m. CST on Dec. 6 at the Central Catholic

High School. Kranz is a 1951 graduate of Central Catholic. The award

will remain at the Toledo school for display. Reporters who would

like to attend the ceremony should contact Michele Jurek

(mjurek@centralcatholic.org) at 419-255-2306, ext. 148, by 3 p.m. on

Dec. 5.

The award is a moon rock encased in Lucite and mounted for public

display as inspiration to a new generation of explorers who will help

return humans to the moon and eventually travel on to Mars and

beyond. The rock is part of the 842 pounds of samples collected

during the six Apollo lunar expeditions from 1969 to 1972.

NASA is giving the Ambassador of Exploration Award to the first

generation of explorers in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space

programs for realizing America's vision of going to the moon. NASA

also is recognizing several key individuals who played significant

roles in the early space programs.

Kranz worked on NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space missions.

Kranz was the lead flight director during the Apollo 13 mission. An

explosion aboard the spacecraft during Apollo 13 required Kranz and

other team members to help resolve the crisis and safely bring the

astronauts back to Earth. Kranz was a co-recipient of the

Presidential Medal of Freedom for the Apollo 13 Mission. For

information about Central Catholic High School, visit:

http://www.centralcatholic.org/

For more images of the award, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/AofEphotos.html

-end-

To subscribe to the list, send a message to:

hqnews-subscribe@mediaservices.nasa.gov

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http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Is-Not-an-Option/dp/B000FC0O7M/

*Failure Is Not an Option (Kindle Edition)*

by Gene Kranz

*Amazon.com*

In 1957, the Russians launched /Sputnik/ and the ensuing space race.

Three years later, Gene Kranz left his aircraft testing job to join NASA

and champion the American cause. What he found was an embryonic

department run by whiz kids (such as himself), sharp engineers and

technicians who had to create the Mercury mission rules and procedure

from the ground up. As he says, "Since there were no books written on

the actual methodology of space flight, we had to write them as we went

along."

Kranz was part of the mission control team that, in January 1961,

launched a chimpanzee into space and successfully retrieved him, and

made Alan Shepard the first American in space in May 1961. Just two

months later they launched Gus Grissom for a space orbit, John Glenn

orbited Earth three times in February 1962, and in May of 1963 Gordon

Cooper completed the final Project Mercury launch with 22 Earth orbits.

And through them all, and the many Apollo missions that followed, Gene

Kranz was one of the integral inside men--one of those who bore the

responsibility for the /Apollo 1/ tragedy, and the leader of the "tiger

team" that saved the /Apollo 13/ astronauts.

Moviegoers know Gene Kranz through Ed Harris's Oscar-nominated portrayal

of him in /Apollo 13/, but Kranz provides a more detailed insider's

perspective in his book /Failure Is Not an Option/. You see NASA through

his eyes, from its primitive days when he first joined up, through the

1993 shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, his last

mission control project. His memoir, however, is not high literature.

Kranz has many accomplishments and honors to his credit, including the

Presidential Medal of Freedom, but this is his first book, and he's not

a polished author. There are, perhaps, more behind-the-scenes details

and more paragraphs devoted to what Cape Canaveral looked like than the

general public demands. If, however, you have a long-standing

fascination with aeronautics, if you watched /Apollo 13/ and wanted

more, /Failure Is Not an Option/ will fill the bill. /--Stephanie Gold/

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kranz

Eugene Francis "Gene" Kranz (born 17 August 1933) is a retired NASA

flight director and manager. Kranz served as a flight director during

the Gemini and Apollo programs, and is best known for his role in saving

the crew of Apollo 13. He is also famous for his trademark flattop

hairstyle, and the wearing of vests (waistcoats) of different styles and

materials during missions for which he acted as flight director. Kranz

has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4223/sp4223.htm

Edited by

Glen E. Swanson

The NASA History Series

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA History Office

Office of Policy and Plans

Washington, D.C., 1999

*http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4223/contents.htm

SP-4223 "Before This Decade Is Out..."

Chapter 6. Eugene F. Kranz.

*http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4223/ch6.htm

[118]

Eugene F. Kranz, flight director, is shown at his console on May 30,

1965, in the Mission Operations Control Room in the Mission Control

Center at Houston during a Gemini-Titan IV simulation to prepare for the

four-day, 62-orbit flight. (NASA Photo S-65-22203.)

[119]

From a very young age, Eugene F. Kranz developed a unique interest in

space flight. Born in Toledo, Ohio, on August 17, 1933, Kranz formerly

declared his interest in the subject by writing a high school thesis

which explored the possibilities of flying a single-stage rocket to the

Moon. However, after graduating from Parks College of St. Louis,

Missouri, with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering, Kranz's interests

became more down to earth as he shifted from space travel to aviation.

[131]

Gene Kranz working at his flight director's console in the Mission

Operations Control Room at Houston circa 1965. (NASA Photo S-65-60057.)

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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