Inside the wild—and wildly successful—early years of mission control

Mission Control, on the third day of Apollo 8. Seen on the TV monitor is a picture of Earth telecast from the spacecraft 176,000 miles away. (credit: NASA)

Aside from a few famous names like Chris Kraft and Gene Kranz, the people who worked in NASA’s Mission Control during the space program’s glory days remain largely anonymous. But that doesn’t make their personal stories any less compelling than those of the astronauts inside the spacecraft they so closely watched over.

These flight controllers worked inside the “Cathedral,” the third floor of Building 30 in the center of the Johnson Space Center’s sprawling campus. They were always watching, running the missions and ready to make split-second decisions. Now a new book, Go, Flight!, brings these flight controllers to life by providing an illuminating look at NASA in the days during the Gemini and Apollo programs, when the agency was more freewheeling and less buttoned down.

Above all, the dedication of these “steely eyed missile men” to their tasks stands out. Inside the doors of mission control it was all business. Was there really never any BSing? “Never,” the book’s coauthor and long-time flight director Milt Heflin told Ars. But outside Mission Control? They worked hard. They partied hard. And here are some of their stories.

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