Apollo 13 Moon

Even before the first U. S. astronaut entered space in 1961, planning for a centralized facility to communicate with the spacecraft and monitor its performance had begun, for the most part the brainchild of Christopher C. Kraft, NASA’s first flight director. During John Glenn’s flight in February 1962 (the first crewed orbital flight by the U. S. ), Kraft was overruled by NASA managers. He was vindicated by post-mission analysis, and implemented a rule that during the mission, the flight director’s word was absolute —NASA would have to fire him to overrule him. Flight directors during Apollo had a one-sentence job description, “The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success. ”
