Men of Mission Control (post 63)

While most of the public attention focused on the Apollo 11 crew, they stood at the top of a pyramid of over 400,000 people who worked on Project Apollo. Armstrong and Aldrin would not have landed and returned from the Moon without the men of Mission Control in Houston. There were four Flight Directors there who were directly responsible for different phases of the Apollo 11 mission. Working along each of  them were four astronauts serving as CAPCOMS. The team for the launch and EVA was Cliff Charlesworth (“Green Flight”) and Bruce McCandless. The team for the lunar landing was Gene Kranz (“White Flight”) and Charlie Duke. The team for the lunar ascent was Glynn Lunney (“Black Flight”) and Ron Evans. The final team for night periods was Gerry Griffin (“Gold Flight”) and Owen Garriott. Over a 40 year period I wrote to or met each of the Flight Directors and asked them to sign an Apollo 11 First Day Cover (Cliff Charlesworth died in 1991 and his signature is rarely seen).  I purchased the second cover

signed by some of the CAPCOMS and added to it;  it is imperfect because Al Worden was not an official CAPCOM  and the autograph of Bruce MCandless appears both as an autopen and genuine signature. Besides the Flight Directors and CAPCOMS,  hundreds of other NASA and contractor personnel worked at the Manned Spacecraft Center to make Apollo 11 a succss.

#Apollo11Eyewitness  Post #63

http://apollo11eyewitness-chudwin.blogspot.com/