Milt Windler, NASA flight director who helped save Apollo 13, dies at 94
Milt Windler, one of the four leaders of Mission Control who in 1970 directed the round-the-clock efforts to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts back to Earth safely, has died at the age of 94.
Milt Windler, one of the four leaders of Mission Control who in 1970 directed the round-the-clock efforts to bring the Apollo 13 astronauts back to Earth safely, has died at the age of 94.
The short version
- Windler died on Thursday , surrounded by his loving family, according to a brief notice posted online.
- He then served as a flight director for all three crewed missions to the United States’ first space station, Skylab.
- “Apollo was such a rapid pace that I don’t think people had the chance to think about it very much.
What happened
It has only become more clear to me later on that we were making history,” said Windler in a 2006 oral history interview for the University of North Texas. “You’d do a mission and then you’d immediately turn around and get ready for another mission.” Each flight director chose a team name (at first colors).
Why it matters
The trans-lunar injection, or TLI, burn placed Apollo 8 crew members Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell on a trajectory to advance the United States ahead of the Soviet Union by becoming the first nation to orbit people around the moon.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.