Learning Center Our Enshrinees

Robert Rowe Gilruth

• Joined the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which would later become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), upon graduating college.
• Selected to manage a free-flight guided missile range at Wallops Island, Virginia at the meer age of 31.
• Directed Project Mercury which was responsible for the first American astronaut to orbit the earth and was accomplished only three years after NASA was created.
• Named the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center and assigned the responsibility of designing and developing spacecraft and associated equipment, planning and controlling missions, and training flight crews.
• Greatly contributed to the success of the Apollo Program.
• Appointed as Director of Key Personnel Development in 1972 where he identified and helped to prepare the future leaders of NASA.