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Memorial Tributes Volume 23 (2021) / Chapter Skim
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CHRISTOPHER C. KRAFT JR.
Pages 166-173

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From page 167...
... TRULY On July 21, 1969, the New York Times front page featured just one story, written by John Noble Wilford. The first line said it all: "HOUSTON, Monday, July 21 – Men have landed and walked on the moon." As director of flight operations, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS KRAFT JR.
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From page 168...
... And Flight is God." Chris Kraft Jr. was born at home February 28, 1924, in the small Virginia town of Phoebus to Christopher and Vanda Olivia Suddreth Kraft.
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From page 169...
... Gilruth assigned Chris to flight operations once Mercury was a reality. The next few years were a tumultuous time during which Chris formed a concept of Mission Control in his mind, although it would start in a blockhouse at Cape Canaveral with more grease pencils than sophisticated computers, and graphic displays followed later.
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From page 170...
... Between Mercury missions, Chris and Betty Anne made a house hunting trip and for their new home chose Friendswood, a Quaker village a few miles from the future center. In preparation for Gemini, the flight control team had to train and prepare schematics for a totally different spacecraft and modify mission rules.
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From page 171...
... Then, with the Gemini missions completed and only about a month before Apollo was to begin, tragedy struck. On January 27, 1967, during a final launch pad test, a cockpit fire erupted in a pure oxygen atmosphere and in the conflagration that followed, the prime crew of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee were killed.
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From page 172...
... in February 1973. Chris was a strong leader of JSC and during his tenure NASA completed the Apollo program by flying Apollo 16 and Apollo 17, flew the first three long-duration missions on Skylab, flew the Apollo-Soyuz docking mission with the Soviets in the depths of the Cold War, developed the Space Shuttle, flew five free flights of the Space Shuttle Enterprise off the top of the 747, and flew the first two orbital test flights of the Space Shuttle Columbia.
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Key Terms

  • mission control
  • manned space
  • space shuttle
  • mission rules
  • betty anne

  • chris kraft
  • space center
  • control chris
  • flight control
  • space flight

  • flight controllers
  • space program
  • control center
  • human spaceflight
  • gemini missions

  • columbus kraft
  • earth orbit
  • christopher columbus
  • mercury missions
  • leave tidewater

  • baseball team
  • command module
  • japanese attacked
  • commitment shocked
  • numerous american

  • missions flew
  • lunar landing
  • dry run
  • launch pad
  • british spitfire


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