Lessons Learned From Project Apollo: Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop

Bill Tindall planned all ten Gemini missions and invented the "Tindallgrams," memos that captured the details of Apollo operations planning. In July 1989 he sat in the Gilruth Recreation Center at the Johnson Space Center with George Mueller, who ran NASA's manned space flight office from 1963 to 1969, and with Owen Morris, Max Faget, Robert Gilruth and Christopher Kraft. John Logsdon moderated, and the NASA History Office published the transcript ten years later.

Chief Historian Roger Launius's foreword borrows a line from a 1968 editorial in Science: the most valuable spin-off of the space program might be better knowledge of how to plan, coordinate and monitor the work of many organizations. He pairs it with the "program management" concept, in which one authority held design, procurement, testing, logistics, training and operations.

The session was convened by Joseph Loftus of Johnson Space Center to get management lessons on the record. Each speaker is introduced by a short career summary, and Kraft's includes directing the design of Mission Control.