[2] As a young man, Kinzler built model planes and flew them in competitions, turning down a scholarship at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University to pursue his interest in aeronautics.

He parlayed his model-building skills into a job with National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics building models for wind tunnel testing.

[2] Asked by NASA officials for ideas about how to make a commemorative U.S. flag "fly" on the airless Moon for the planned Apollo landings, it was Kinzler who invented and oversaw the design and implementation of the system ultimately used.

The stainless steel plaque included facsimiles of the signatures of all mission astronauts and of the president of the United States along with a depiction of the Eastern and Western Hemisphere of the Earth.

[2] Kinzler's technical services division was responsible for a variety of other space program tools and innovations, including the Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit used by Ed White during the Gemini IV mission in the first spacewalk by a U.S. astronaut and the flexible rubber boot between a space capsule and its re-entry heat shield that softened ocean landings.

His solution was to develop a parasol-like arrangement that could be deployed through an 8-inch (20 cm) square sally port through the hull of the station at the point of the damage.

[4] Kinzler's design allowed the device to be pushed through the port from the inside of the station and then deployed by activating springs and telescoping tubes.