Robert Crippen
He became a NASA astronaut in September 1969. He was a member of the astronaut support crew for the Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4 missions and for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. He was the pilot of the first orbital test flight of the Shuttle program (STS-1, April 12–14, 1981) and was the commander of three additional shuttle flights: STS-7, June 18–24, 1983; STS-41C, April 6–13, 1984; and STS-41G, October 6–13, 1984. In addition to participating in the first Shuttle flight, he also presided over the first five-person crew (STS-7, which had the first American woman in space), the first satellite repair operation (STS-41-C, which repaired the Solar Maximum Mission satellite), and the first seven-person crew (STS-41-G). He was named commander of the STS-62A mission which would have launched from the new SLC-6 facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base. That mission was cancelled after the Challenger Disaster and SLC-6 was closed when the Air Force went back to launching satellites on the Titan III and Titan IV rockets.
Crippen served as the director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center from January 1992 to January 1995. During his tenure, the center processed, safely launched, and recovered 22 Space Shuttle missions. He provided leadership for over thirteen thousand civil service and contractor personnel. This included oversight of multiple contracts supporting center operations for both manned and unmanned spaceflight. He also implemented cost savings of greater than 25% by establishing and developing new quality management techniques while ensuring the highest safety standards in an extremely hazardous environment.
