Three veteran space program communicators recently were honored at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for their contributions delivering U.S. space exploration news and information to the American people and the world. During the May 1, 2023 ceremony at the Florida Spaceport’s News Center, the names of Bob Granath, Red Huber and Mark Kramer were added to the facility’s “Chroniclers wall” — a communicators’ “hall of fame.”
“Six, five, four, we’ve gone for main engine start and we have liftoff of America’s first Space Shuttle,” said NASA launch commentator Hugh Harris as more than a decade of development culminated with the dawn of a new era of spaceflight. John Young and Bob Crippen lifted off aboard Columbia on April 12, 1981. The Space Shuttle was an idea born in the closing days of the 1960s race to the Moon. The concept had many technological hurdles to overcome. After numerous delays, it became a triumph of American technology and engineering.
In 1976, America’s second-generation human space program came together with an iconic story line inspired by the nation’s first efforts to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Key players in the popular televisions series, Star Trek, attended the rollout of NASA’s prototype Space Shuttle orbiter, Enterprise.
“Apollo 13” set out to chronicle NASA’s dramatic third mission to land on the lunar surface. It was based on Jim Lovell’s best-selling book, “Lost Moon.” On the big screen, what happened in 1970 is pretty much what you get.
In the moments following Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell’s report, “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” things happened fast. Lovell and his crewmates, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, worked with the team in Mission Control to sort out the issues facing the mission. But, key members of that effort believe they also were aided by a Higher Power.
What was to have been America’s third lunar landing in April 1970, became a struggle to safely return the crew after an oxygen tank explosion crippled the crew’s spacecraft. During a reunion of key players involved in the Apollo 13 mission, they recalled what has been termed “NASA’s finest hour.”