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Hampton, Virginia

Inducted in 1979, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. is best known as the Mission Director on all the Mercury missions and many of the Gemini missions. He joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, later NASA, in 1945. During his career he made many significant contributions in the field of aeronautical flight research. He was a prime contributor to the development of mission and flight control techniques used in manned space flight. Kraft directed the planning and operation of every U.S. manned space flight from Mercury to the first Space Shuttle. He oversaw the design of the Mission Control Center in Houston from which all of NASA’s space programs have been conducted.