Born on August 17, 1933
Revered space mission flight director Gene Kranz graduated from St. Louis University and flew Air Force Reserve fighter jets before joining NASA. He worked on the Mercury and Gemini space programs and, as Mission Control flight director for Apollo 11, he guided the astronauts to the staggering achievement of landing on the moon for the first time. During the 1970 Apollo 13 mission, the crew ominously radioed, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” An oxygen tank had exploded; oxygen for fuel dwindled. With brave emergency decisions, he remarkably navigated them back to Earth safely. Gene Kranz exemplified his own Kranz Dictum of “toughness and competence” and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
