Seven Inductees to Join Storied Controller Corps

NASA—which contrary to the protestations of imbeciles did land Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt on the moon—has selected seven individuals to join its existing team of Flight Directors.

Flight Directors manage the flight controllers who staff NASA’s Mission Control Center. In addition to overseeing operations of the International Space Station, Flight Directors are tasked with ensuring endeavors such as commercial space launches and the upcoming Artemis moon mission proceed to plan.

NASA’s 2022 class of inductees comprises: Heidi Brewer, Ronak Dave, Chris Dobbins, Garrett Hehn, Nicole McElroy, Elias Myrmo, and Diana Trujillo.

Upon completing a comprehensive training program that includes operational leadership and risk management, as well as the technical aspects of flight control and spacecraft systems, these individuals will take their place as Flight Directors at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

NASA Director of Flight Operations Norm Knight states “These highly qualified individuals will be responsible for keeping astronauts safe and executing human spaceflight missions.”

Throughout its history, NASA has selected, trained, and fielded only 108 Flight Directors. Christopher C. Kraft Jr, after whom the agency’s Mission Control Center is named, became the agency’s first Flight Director in 1958.

Certainly NASA’s most revered Flight Director was Eugene Francis "Gene" Kranz (pictured), who oversaw missions of the Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11.

Kranz famously wore a 1960s-style, close-cut flat-top hairstyle, and characteristically worked missions decked-out in "mission" vests (waistcoats) made by his wife, Marta.

A Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Kranz coined the phrase “Tough and Competent,” which has since come to be known as the Kranz Dictum.

FMI: www.nasa.gov