Mission Control and Program Leadership

Pioneers who ran missions and programs from the ground rather than designing the hardware itself: Christopher Kraft, NASA's first flight director, Gene Kranz, the flight director of Gemini 4 and the Apollo 13 rescue, George Mueller, the NASA administrator who introduced all-up testing for the Saturn V, and James Webb, NASA's second administrator during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo buildup. Belongs here: a pioneer chiefly known for directing missions or administering a space program. Does not belong here: a pioneer chiefly known for engineering the hardware, grouped under Spacecraft and Rocket Engineers, or for the mathematics and software behind a mission, grouped under Computing and Guidance Pioneers.