13 Facts About Rocco Petrone

Rocco Anthony Petrone was an American mechanical engineer, US Army officer and NASA official.

Rocco Petrone served as director of launch operations at NASA's Kennedy Space Center from 1966 to 1969, as Apollo program director at NASA Headquarters from 1969 to 1973, as third director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center from 1973 to 1974, and as NASA Associate Administrator from 1974 until his retirement from NASA in 1975.

The son of Italian immigrants, Anthony and Theresa Petrone, emigrated from Sasso di Castalda, Petrone was raised Roman Catholic and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Rocco Petrone earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951, and later received an honorary doctorate from Rollins College.

Rocco Petrone retired from the US Army in 1966 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Rocco Petrone oversaw construction of all the launch elements of the Apollo program at Kennedy Space Center, including Launch Complex 39, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Crawler-Transporter, all of which were later modified for Space Shuttle operations.

From 1973 to 1974, Rocco Petrone served as the first non-German administrator of the Marshall Space Flight Center, after Wernher von Braun and Eberhard Rees.

In 1974, Rocco Petrone left the Marshall Center to accept an appointment at NASA headquarters, assuming the post of NASA Associate Administrator, the third-highest-ranking official within the agency.

In 1975, Rocco Petrone retired from NASA and became the president and CEO of the National Center for Resource Recovery, a collaborative industry and labor initiative aimed at developing and promoting methods to recover materials and energy from solid waste.

Rocco Petrone eventually rose to become head of Rockwell's space transportation division.

Rocco Petrone feared that the ice could seriously damage the shuttle's thermal protection system when it struck the tiles during launch.

Rocco Petrone told his managers at Cape Canaveral that Rockwell could not support launching because it viewed the amount of ice on the orbiter as a launch constraint.

Rocco Petrone died on August 24,2006, from complications related to diabetes in Palos Verdes Estates, California, aged 80.