36 Facts About Glynn Lunney

Glynn Stephen Lunney was an American NASA engineer.

An employee of NASA since its creation in 1958, Lunney was a flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, and was on duty during historic events such as the Apollo 11 lunar ascent and the pivotal hours of the Apollo 13 crisis.

Glynn Lunney was a key figure in the US human spaceflight program from Project Mercury through the coming of the Space Shuttle.

Glynn Lunney received numerous awards for his work, including the National Space Trophy, which he was given by the Rotary Club in 2005.

Glynn Lunney graduated from the Scranton Preparatory School in 1953.

Glynn Lunney graduated from college in June 1958, with a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering.

Only a month after Glynn Lunney graduated, President Eisenhower signed into existence the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, into which NACA was subsumed.

Glynn Lunney's timing was perfect, for as Lunney later said, "there was no such thing as space flight until the month I got out of college".

Glynn Lunney was transferred to Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, where in September 1959 he became a member of the Space Task Group, which was the body given responsibility for the creation of NASA's human spaceflight program.

Glynn Lunney took part in the writing of the first set of mission rules, the guidelines by which both flight controllers and astronauts operated.

Glynn Lunney worked both in the Control Center and at remote sites; during the flight of John Glenn, America's first orbital spaceflight, he was serving as the FIDO in Bermuda.

In September 1961, NASA's Space Task Group was reorganized into the Manned Spacecraft Center and moved to Houston, Texas, and Glynn Lunney moved with it.

Aged only twenty-eight, Glynn Lunney was the youngest of the four.

Glynn Lunney was stationed in Bermuda for the uncrewed Gemini 2 mission.

Glynn Lunney worked backup on Gemini 3, taking charge of the newly established Mission Control Center in Houston, at a time when flights were still controlled from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Glynn Lunney took charge of the "boilerplate" tests of the Apollo abort escape system at White Sands, which took place during the Gemini program, and was flight director during the first uncrewed Saturn V test flight, SA-501.

Glynn Lunney was not scheduled to serve as a flight director on the first crewed Apollo mission, later known as Apollo 1.

Glynn Lunney attracted significant media attention in 1968, when he worked as lead flight director on Apollo 7, the first of the crewed Apollo flights.

Glynn Lunney had primary responsibility for dealing with the mission commander, Wally Schirra, who repeatedly questioned orders from the ground.

In 1970, while still a flight director, Glynn Lunney was selected as one of the members of a NASA delegation to the Soviet Union, which was to discuss the possibility of cooperation between the two countries in the field of human spaceflight.

Glynn Lunney was named technical director of the ASTP in the following year.

Glynn Lunney took part in working groups in Houston that dealt with the technical details of the project.

On June 13,1972, Glynn Lunney was given overall responsibility for the test project; henceforth he would be in charge not only of building a partnership with the Soviets, but of mission planning and of negotiating with North American Rockwell, the spacecraft contractor.

In 1973, Glynn Lunney became manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, a position which gave him responsibility for the Apollo spacecraft used during Skylab missions, as well giving him more authority in his role as head of the ASTP.

However, Glynn Lunney supported the project, saying in a later interview that he did not believe the cooperation necessary to build the International Space Station would have been possible if ASTP had not laid the groundwork for it.

In 1981, Glynn Lunney became manager of the Space Shuttle program, a high-level position where Glynn Lunney found himself responsible for setting the agenda for the developing program.

Glynn Lunney's responsibilities were broad ones; they included supervising program planning, budgeting and scheduling; systems engineering; and mission planning.

Many of his colleagues had expected Glynn Lunney to succeed his mentor, Kraft, as director of Johnson Space Center; Neil Hutchinson, a fellow flight director, later commented that Glynn Lunney "was sort of the anointed one".

In 1985, Glynn Lunney decided to leave NASA, feeling that the Space Shuttle program had worn him out physically and mentally and that he was ready for a new type of challenge.

Glynn Lunney's actions were not unusual in the context of NASA practice at the time, which allowed a "walk through" of such potentially controversial waivers if no debate was expected.

For Glynn Lunney, this represented a return to his roots in mission operations, which he had left twenty years before.

At this point, Glynn Lunney became Vice President and Program Manager of the United Space Alliance's spaceflight operations in Houston; he stayed in this position until his retirement in 1999.

Glynn Lunney had been treated for leukemia for several years, but according to his family he succumbed to stomach cancer.

Glynn Lunney was a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society and of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Glynn Lunney received many awards from NASA, including three Group Achievement Awards, two Exceptional Service Medals and three Distinguished Service Medals.

McClure had a relatively minor role leading writer Charles Murray to lament that Glynn Lunney was "barely visible in the movie", being overshadowed by the focus on Glynn Lunney's fellow flight director Gene Kranz.