Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program by Glynn S. Lunney Page B

decades later. Probably about the same time, I became the candidate for the FIDO position at Bermuda. I remember a short and to-the-point discussion as John Mayer recommended my selection to Chris Kraft. I was twenty-four years of age.
    We all were well aware of the criticality of this job. John Mayer was unequivocal, “Chris, Glynn knows this as well as I do. I am completely confident he can handle this job.” Chris listened and soon agreed. Without any dramatics or hesitation, Chris’s ready confirmation of my selection was just another in a constant and daily delegation of responsibility to the people who worked for him. Looking back on this time, I have to be in awe at the level of trust and confidence that we were accorded. It was not cavalier. Both of these men had many opportunities to measure and test me before and after this decision because all of us worked in a very intense and open team fashion and were not constrained by organization position. All of us believed that Chris had a very accurate calibration of all of us and assigned us accordingly. But this willingness to trust us and give us the room to grow created an environment of can-do and will-do-no-matter-what, which was the hallmark of the operations organization for decades and still is today. It drove us to an even higher level of performance to live up to Chris’ confidence in us. In later years, I was exposed to many training sessions on leadership by national experts. My reaction always was, “Gee, I was living this lesson with Chris and others of STG when I was twenty-two. We just did not have the buzzword terminology.”
    This is a good time to underline the positive and demanding environment we worked in. I was too junior to see the relationships with other Centers and NASA HQ in action, though I did see more of those interfaces when I became a Flight Director in 1964. Early on, the local scene was my daily reality. The tone was clearly set by Dr. Bob Gilruth. In all the notoriety, very strong personalities and press attention of the time, Dr. Gilruth seemed like the forgotten man. And yet he managed the direction of the work, the extremely strong management team of the STG and later, in Houston, the Manned Spacecraft Center. Neither I nor anybody else ever heard or felt anything but the utmost respect for our leader, Dr. Gilruth. He had as much to do with the ultimate success of the first decade of manned space flight as any other player on the scene.
    You have no doubt heard of different management styles – management by: the numbers, consensus, goals, fear/intimidation, ambiguity, among others. One of his direct reports who had also worked with him at Langley, before the space business began, described his style in a way that I have never heard of before or since. He called it “Management by Respect.” Interpret that anyway you like, but I thought it was a real capture of his modus operandi. And it flowed through the STG and the MSC like the elixir of achievement. We saw it most often in the person of Chris Kraft, who lived this philosophy with a strong streak of trusting us with the job, and demanding that we get it right. What a fantastic opportunity for all of us to be part of this amazing team and charged with this national imperative of manned space and then, Apollo. We were truly blessed.
    Working at the Bermuda station on TDY was a great experience and a smaller stage to learn on. John Hodge was the Flight Director of the team, which included a capcom, two systems flight controllers, a flight surgeon and the FIDO. We stayed at the BOQ lodging at Kendall Air Force Base, which is where the station was. I served there for four flights, MA-3, -4, -5 and -6. MA-3 was planned to go into orbit but was destroyed by the range safety officer at forty-three seconds into the flight. The vehicle pitch and roll program failed to activate and the vehicle was climbing vertically. After the destruct command, the spacecraft sequenced just as it