Gene Kranz
Retired NASA Flight Director

September 12, 2012
7:00pm
Duncan Hall
McMurtry Auditorium

Reception – 6:30pm
Martel Hall

Spaceflight operations presents a unique range of challenges unlike those found on earth. Time, distance, and the remote environment provide a unique opportunity to assess planning, training, and operations of the integrated crew ground team.

Leadership, trust, values and teamwork provide the foundation for the compelling story of early space missions concluding with the rescue of the Apollo 13 crew after an oxygen tank exploded with the spacecraft 200,000 miles from earth. The story concludes with a summary of the technical cause of the explosion. Like an aircraft accident, the Apollo 13 tank explosion required a series of apparently unrelated events none of which by itself would have caused the failure.

BIOGRAPHY
Eugene Francis “Gene” Kranz (born August 17, 1933) is a retired NASA Flight Director and manager. Mr. Kranz was selected as Division Chief for Flight Control in 1968, and was the Flight Director for many Apollo missions including the Apollo 11 lunar landing. He is best known for his role in directing the successful Mission Control “Tiger Team” efforts to save the crew of Apollo 13, which later because the subject of a major motion picture of the same name.

Event flyer

Sponsored by the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and Rice Space Institute.

Parking:

• The closest visitor parking (paid) is near Entrance 2.
• $1 parking is available in the lot west of the Stadium (entrance on Greenbriar St.), but plan for a long walk or ride on the shuttle.ALL PARKING MUST BE PAID BY CREDIT CARD.

Campus Map: http://www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html

For more details about other lectures in the series and to be added to the mailing list, check out our website: http://spacefrontiers.rice.edu/