JSC News Release Log 1990/90-030
Mission Control turns 25 as JSC Prepares for the 21st Century
June 1990 will mark the 25th anniversary of Gemini IV, the first manned space flight guided from what was then NASA's newest field center, and the flight which made famous the phrase, "This is Mission Control, Houston."
The year was 1965, a time of rapid expansion in the American manned space flight program as NASA sought to meet the challenge proposed for the civilian space program by President John F. Kennedy, to land men on the Moon and return them safely to the Earth before the end of the uecade. Just four months after Kennedy's May, 1961 speech proposing that bold step, NASA chose a 1,620-acre site south of Houston for construction of what was then known as the Manned Spacecraft Center.
Houston became the new home of the Space Task Group, the cadre of scientists, engineers and managers responsible for selecting and training the astronauts, designing and building the spacecraft they would fly in, and conducting flight operations for all manned missions.
The Space Task Group originally was formed in October 1958 to carry out Project Mercury, just one week after NASA itself was created by an act of Congress to function as an independent Executive Branch agency, responsible to the President for all civilian space exploration activities. The new agency was built upon the 43-year-old foundation provided by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), whose 8,000 employees, three laboratories and budget were absorbed by the new space agency.
By the end of Project Mercury, the Space Task Group's size and responsibilities had grown to the point that a new home for manned spaceflight was necessary. Construction began on the sprawling field center in Houston in 1962 and was largely complete two years later.
Since that time, the facility, renamed in honor of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973, has operated 60 manned space flights from the Mission Control Center, including nine missions to the Moon and 36 flights of the Space Shuttle.
The history of those programs included many examples of international cooperation in space exploration. During the Apollo program, scientists from Europe and other countries aided their American colleagues in formulating goals and plans for lunar surface exploration. The Shuttle program, with strong ties to Canada and the member nations of the European Space Agency, has made possible the flights of the first West German astronaut, Ulf Merbold in 1983; the First Canadian in space, Marc Garneau in 1984; and the first French astronaut, Patrick Baudry in 1985.
Today the Johnson Space Center is playing an important role in the country's even more ambitious plans for the future. In addition to the Shuttle program, JSC's government and aerospace industry team, consisting of more than 12,000 civil service and contractor personnel, are working on the design and development of Space Station Freedom, a manned research laboratory scheduled to begin operations in low Earth orbit in the late 1990s. The orbital complex will include laboratory and logistics modules developed by the European Space Agency and Japan's National Space Development Agency, and will rely heavily on a robotic manipulator system--similar to the Shuttle'’s robot arm--developed by Canada.
In addition, JSC will play a central role in the space exploration initiative announced in 1989 by President George Bush, which committed the United States to renewed exploration of the Moon and construction of a lunar base early in the 21st Century, and eventual manned expeditions to Mars.
One result of this heightened activity in the civilian space program is an increasingly favorable economic impact on the Houston metroplex. In 1987 alone, JSC is estimated to have had an impact of almost three- quarters of a billion dollars, resulting in 25,000 jobs in the local economy. By 1993, planned Space Station Freedom expenditures are projected to increase current levels of economic activity by more than 66 percent and create as many as 7,000 to 8,000 new jobs which will require additional goods and services, homes, schools, offices, hotels and tourist attractions. In the three years immediately following President Ronald Reagan's approval of the Space Station program, 26 new aerospace office buildings with a total of more than 2 million square feet were constructed in the Clear Lake area, with a total investment of $140 million.
JSC's new $60 million visitor center, Space Center Houston, now being developed in partnership with Walt Disney Imagineering, is scheduled to open next year and will also have a dramatic economic impact. The facility is expected to attract from 2 to 3 million visitors each year, whose stay in the area could generate an additional $60 to $90 million into the local economy.
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