Description:

Glynn Lunney arrived as a new graduate in 1958 at NACA and the Space Task Group near the beginning of the Mercury Project--where they had to learn how to build, launch, sustain and land one man in a small ship. For Lunney, this involved the mastering of the essence of orbital mechanics and helping to design and eventually operate the monitoring and control functions for that discipline in the Mercury Control Center. He went on to Gemini-- the training ground for Apollo. His small group of operators, the ‘Trench’ in the new Mission Control Center in Houston, mastered the new world of rendezvous, docking, multiple maneuvers and guided entry. As a Flight Director for Gemini, he became one of the leaders of the operations team--planners, controllers and flight crews-- experienced and anxious to roar into Apollo. That was delayed by the tragedy of the Apollo fire. In time, Apollo was back on track and the fifth manned Apollo mission took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into history. Lunney went on to perform what he termed ‘his best piece of operations work ever’, coming on-duty one hour after the oxygen tank exploded on Apollo XIII.
Leaving operations, he moved to project management as the Cold War took a new turn in the space theater. After a decade of competition, both countries saw the value in cooperation on rendezvous and docking systems to enable the possibility of rescue of stranded space travelers. Lunney became the US Director and this concept was tested in 1975 with the success of the Apollo/Soyuz docking mission. He was also the project manager for the three transport ships, which brought astronauts up and down to repair and live in Skylab, the first US space station. He was known to refer to his work as “The Best Job in the World”!
Lunney grew up in Old Forge in North East Pennsylvania. He went to Scranton Prep, a Jesuit high school, the University of Scranton for 2 years and then the University of Detroit where he co-oped his last 3 years at the NACA Lewis Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. After the period covered by this book, he went on to other executive positions in NASA and to a dozen years in the Aerospace industry. He is most proud of the ‘Medal of Freedom’ award to the Mission Operations team for Apollo XIII.