Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (February 28, 1924 – July 22, 2019) was an American aerospace and NASA engineer who was instrumental in establishing the agency's Mission Control Center and shaping its organization and culture.

It also recommended that NASA cut back on the organizational changes intended to improve safety that were made after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

At the Langley Research Center, advanced wind tunnels were used to test new aircraft designs, and studies were taking place on new concepts such as the Bell X-1 rocket plane.

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established NASA and subsumed NACA within this newly created organization.

[16] Even before NASA began its official existence in October, Kraft was invited by Gilruth to become a part of a new group that was working on the problems of putting a man into orbit.

In fact, the task before him was vast, requiring attention to flight plans, timelines, procedures, mission rules, spacecraft tracking, telemetry, ground support, telecommunications networks and contingency management.

[23] Kraft soon realized that an astronaut could only do so much, particularly during the fast-moving launch phase; the Mercury spacecraft would require real time monitoring and support from specialist engineers.

Another important concept pioneered by Kraft was the idea of the flight director, the man who would coordinate the team of engineers and make real-time decisions about the conduct of the mission.

[24] A pivotal experience for Kraft was the flight of Mercury-Atlas 5, which sent a chimpanzee named Enos on the first American orbital spaceflight carrying a live passenger.

[25] Coverage of these early missions that carried non-human passengers could often be tongue-in-cheek; a Time magazine article on the flight, for example, was titled "Meditative Chimponaut".

The failure of one of the hydrogen peroxide jets controlling the spacecraft's attitude forced Kraft to make the decision to bring the capsule back to Earth after two orbits.

[35] The mission suffered from problems including an unusually high rate of fuel usage, a malfunctioning horizon indicator, a delayed retrofire for re-entry, and a splashdown that was 250 nmi (460 km) downrange from the target area.

"[37] While some of these problems were due to mechanical failures, and responsibility for some of the others is still being debated, Kraft did not hesitate to assign blame to Carpenter, and continued to speak out about the mission for decades afterwards.

[39] In a letter to The New York Times, Carpenter called the book "vindictive and skewed", and offered a different assessment of the reasons for Kraft's frustration: "in space things happen so fast that only the pilot knows what to do, and even ground control can't help.

America's first spacewalk happened during the Gemini 4 mission; Kraft, at his console, found that he had to force himself to concentrate on his work, distracted by Ed White's "mesmerizing" descriptions of the Earth below.

When contact was finally re-established, Kraft expressed his frustration on his ground link to Grissom: "The Flight Director says 'Get back in!

"[50] The article described Kraft's role in the Gemini 5 mission, and drew on his frequent comparisons of his position as flight director with that of an orchestra conductor.

[54] Mission commander Wally Schirra, annoyed by last-minute changes in the crew's schedule and suffering from a bad cold, repeatedly refused to accept orders from the ground.

Although Schirra's actions were successful in the short term, Kraft decreed in consultation with astronaut chief Deke Slayton that none of the Apollo 7 crew would fly again.

"[61] On August 9, Gilruth, Low, Kraft and Slayton flew to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where they briefed NASA managers including Wernher von Braun and Rocco Petrone on the planned mission.

Called into Mission Control by Gene Kranz almost immediately after the accident,[65] he led discussions on whether Apollo 13 should attempt a direct abort, or go around the Moon and return on a free trajectory; the latter option was taken.

He personally hand-picked and trained an entire generation of NASA flight directors, including John Hodge, Glynn Lunney and Gene Kranz, the last of whom referred to Kraft as "The Teacher".

[67] In the words of the space historians Murray and Cox, Kraft "set the tone for one of the most striking features of Flight Operations: unquestioning trust—not of superiors by subordinates, but the other way around.

"[1]Kraft could, however, be a tough taskmaster, making it clear that there was no place in the flight operations division for those who failed to live up to his exacting standards.

Kraft possessed the power to end careers at Johnson Space Center; as mission controller Sy Liebergot recalled, "if he was behind you, you had as much leverage as you needed; if he was against you, you were dead meat.

[72][73] In April 1982, Kraft made what newspaper reports called a "surprise announcement" that he intended to step down as center director at the end of the year.

John Pike, space policy director for the Federation of American Scientists, commented that "the Kraft report is a recipe for disaster.

"[78] NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel took issue with the report, saying in May 1995 that "the assumption that the Space Shuttle systems are now 'mature' smacks of a complacency which may lead to serious mishaps.

[87] In his autobiography, Kraft acknowledged the sacrifices that his family had made as a result of his work for NASA, saying that "I was ... more of a remote authority figure to Gordon and Kristi-Anne than a typical American father.

During the sixties, the Kraft family was deeply involved in church activities: Betty Anne taught Sunday school and served on the altar guild; Gordon was an acolyte; and Kristi-Anne sang in the choir.