Kraft, as a Mission Control procedures officer for the uncrewed Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) test (dubbed in Kranz's autobiography as the "Four-Inch Flight", due to its failure to launch).Īs Procedures Officer, Kranz was put in charge of integrating Mercury Control with the Launch Control Team at Cape Canaveral, Florida, writing the " Go/NoGo" procedures that allowed missions to continue as planned or be aborted, along with serving as a sort of switchboard operator between the control center at Cape Canaveral and the agency's fourteen tracking stations and two tracking ships (via Teletype) located across the globe. Upon joining NASA, he was assigned, by flight director Christopher C. Kranz at his console on May 30, 1965, in the Mission Operations Control Room, Mission Control Center, Houston.Īfter completing the research tests at Holloman Air Force Base, Kranz left McDonnell Aircraft and joined the NASA Space Task Group, then at its Langley Research Center in Virginia. He was discharged from the Air Force Reserve as a Captain in 1972. Air Force at its Research Center at Holloman Air Force Base. Īfter finishing his tour in Korea, Kranz left the Air Force and went to work for McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, where he assisted with the research and testing of new Surface-to-Air (SAM) and Air-to-Ground missiles for the U.S. Kranz was sent to South Korea to fly the F-86 Sabre aircraft for patrol operations around the Korean DMZ. Shortly after receiving his wings, Kranz married Marta Cadena, a daughter of Mexican immigrants who fled from Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. Air Force Reserve, completing pilot training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas in 1955. He received his commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Saint Louis University's Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology in 1954. Following his high school graduation in 1951, Kranz went to college. The thesis was titled The Design and Possibilities of the Interplanetary Rocket. Kranz was interested in space at a young age in high school he wrote a thesis on the topic of a single-stage (SSTO) rocket to the Moon. Kranz has two older sisters, Louise and Helen. His father died in 1940, when Eugene was only seven years old. His father, Leo Peter Kranz, was the son of a German immigrant, and served as an Army medic during World War I. He grew up on a farm that overlooked the Willys-Overland Jeep production plant. Kranz was born August 17, 1933, in Toledo, Ohio, and attended Central Catholic High School. In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Kranz was ranked as the #2 most popular space hero. Kranz is a recipient of a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kranz has been the subject of movies, documentary films, and books and periodical articles. He coined the phrase "tough and competent", which became known as the "Kranz Dictum". He characteristically wore a close-cut flattop hairstyle and the dapper "mission" vests ( waistcoats) of different styles and materials made by his wife, Marta Kranz, for his Flight Director missions. He directed the successful efforts by the Mission Control team to save the crew of Apollo 13, and was later portrayed in the major motion picture of the same name by actor Ed Harris. Eugene Francis " Gene" Kranz (born August 17, 1933) is an American aerospace engineer who served as NASA's second Chief Flight Director, directing missions of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11.
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