Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The coolest guy I've ever met

I recently had the honor of meeting Gene Kranz, arguably the most famous flight director in NASA’s history. In case you don’t know who I’m talking about, he was played by Ed Harris in the movie Apollo 13.


Gene Kranz


Not Gene Kranz

For a NASA geek, meeting Gene Kranz is about as cool as it gets. This would be like meeting the Pope if you’re Catholic, or John Wayne if you’re my dad. Kranz was the guy in charge of mission control during the first Moon landing and during the Apollo 13 ordeal. He set the standard for how manned spaceflight mission control is done, and many of his philosophies are still being used today.

We’d gone to Cheddar’s for dinner and I saw him and his wife eating at a nearby table. I summoned up enough courage to go over and introduce myself. Despite the fact that I was interrupting his dinner, he was extremely friendly, shook my hand, and asked me about my work at NASA. We only talked for about 30 seconds, but I was impressed that a guy as famous as he is was willing to put down his fork to talk to a relative nobody for a few seconds.

2 comments:

Bill Hensley said...

Very, very cool. I also like the fact that he's still married to the same lady (I hope!) after all these years.

Anonymous said...

Actually, you meeting Gene Krantz would be more like your dad meeting Chuck Yeager!!!