Bob M | In an ongoing effort to revive and generate some interest and activity in the Autographs forum, this time we'll present autographs of NASA Flight Directors.![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/bobm/sap004a.jpg) So, starting off, here is a title page from Gene Kranz's book, "Failure Is Not An Option", and signed by six legendary NASA Flight Directors: Kranz, Chris Kraft, Gene Lunney, Milt Windler, Pete Frank and Gerry Griffin. ![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/bobm/sap004b.jpg) Here are two signed covers, with the one at the top an Apollo 5 launch cover signed by Apollo 5 Flight Director Gene Kranz, and below, an Apollo 11 10th anniversary cover signed by the five Apollo 11 Flight Directors, along with them adding the teams they headed; Lunney, Kranz, Griffin, Clifford Charlesworth and Windler. ![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/bobm/sap004c.jpg) The cover at the top is an official SL-3 NASA/KSC cachet launch cover and signed by SL-3 Flight Directors, Charles Lewis, Donald Puddy (who kindly had the cover signed for me), Philip Shaffer, Neil Hutchinson and Windler. The cover below, also kindly done for me by Puddy, was located in JSC Mission Control during the first Enterprise free flight in the Approach and Landing Test Program (ALT) at Edwards AFB, CA. ![](http://www.collectspace.com/review/bobm/sap004d.jpg) This STS-1 launch cover is autographed by Hutchinson (Ascent), Puddy (Entry) and Lewis (Orbit). The cover below, an STS-2 launch cover, is autographed by the STS-2 primary and backup Flight Directors: Lewis, Tommy Holloway, Harold Draughon, Gary Coen, John Cox, Puddy and Hutchinson. The NASA Flight Directors have generally been good about signing through the years. Autographs from Mercury to the present day would involve a total of 108 Flight Directors. Autographs of only 16 are shown here. I doubt that there is enough collector interest or dedication anymore that would result in anyone pursuing autographs of all the 108 Flight Directors. But perhaps those from the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs would be of more interest. |