Word: program
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most of the relaxed, casually dressed men under Kraft's baton have degrees in engineering, mathematics or physics. Though their average age is only 32, many have been with the program since the space program's first flights began with Project Mercury in 1959. They form four teams-labeled green, white, black and maroon-that serve around the clock in overlapping eight-hour shifts...
...role during a mission. Near by is a Department of Defense representative, whose console has direct lines to all military forces supporting the mission, including recovery teams; for Apollo 11, Air Force Major General Vincent Huston was the Pentagon's man. During most missions, George M. Low, Apollo program manager, Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, and other top officials also sit at the rear of the control room...
...control room. For each console there is a staff support room down the hall manned by a dozen or more experts. Complete telemetry from the spacecraft is received by staff-room consoles, which funnel the most important bits to the control room and store the rest. The space program's major contractors-North American Rockwell for the command and service modules, Grumman for the lunar module-also keep staff members in nearby offices. In case of trouble with spacecraft equipment, the contractors can call major subcontractors on their own hot lines. Mission Control maintains an up-to-the-minute...
PRESIDENT Richard Nixon, says his friend, Astronaut Frank Borman, likes to describe himself as a space "activist." Nixon's activism will soon be tested. Eagle had hardly lifted off the Sea of Tranquillity when the very success of Apollo 11 heightened the controversy over what role the space program should take in the future. Vice President Spiro Agnew wants the U.S. to aim at putting a man on Mars by the year 2000, and NASA already has on hand a plethora of ambitious projects that should keep it busy through 1985. Critics like Housing and Urban Development Secretary George...
Sputnik, but spending has already declined from its 1966 peak of $5.9 billion. Wernher Von Braun, whose team was responsible for the Saturn boosters, argues that unless the nation embarks on another Apollo-size program, the U.S. stands to suffer a "tragic loss of a national asset." He fears that NASA's skilled engineers and scientists may be dispersed after the last of the nine remaining Apollo missions is flown in 1972. The space team has already shrunk from 400,000 in 1966 to 140,000 today, and the group might be difficult to rebuild. "To continue to attract...