Robert R. Gilruth
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Robert Rowe Gilruth was an American aerospace engineer and an aviation/space pioneer who was the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, later renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
Gilruth at NASA, 1965
Gilruth presents President John F. Kennedy with a mounted model of the Apollo spacecraft in 1962
Gilruth (far right) introduces the Apollo 1 crew during a press conference in Houston. From the left are astronauts Roger Chaffee, Ed White and Gus Grissom, 1966.
Space Task Group
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The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with managing America's human spaceflight programs. Headed by Robert Gilruth and based at the Langley Research Center
Robert R. Gilruth
…succeeded in launching Sputnik, and Gilruth became involved in the transition of NACA into NASA. When NASA was created, Gilruth became head of the Space Task Group, tasked with putting a man in space before the Soviet Union. In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy announced that America would put a man on the Moon…
The Headquarters of the Space Task Group (STG) at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia
Sign on the Space Task Group building in June 1961