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 |image=Chris Kraft.jpg
-|caption=Chris Kraft as director of [[Johnson Space Center]], 1979 deepa
+|caption=Chris Kraf
-|text='''Christopher Columbus Kraft, Jr.''' (born [[February 28]] [[1924]]) is a retired [[NASA]] engineer and manager. After graduating from [[Virginia Tech University]] in 1944, Kraft was hired by the [[National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics]] (NACA), the predecessor organization to the [[National Aeronautics and Space Administration]] (NASA). He worked for over a decade in aeronautical research before being asked in 1958 to join the [[Space Task Group]], a small team entrusted with the responsibility of putting America's first man in space. Assigned to the flight operations division, Kraft became NASA's first [[flight controller#Flight Director .28FLIGHT.29|flight director]]. He was on duty during such historic missions as America's [[mercury-Atlas 5|first spaceflight]], [[mercury-Atlas 7|first orbital flight]] and [[gemini 4|first spacewalk]].
-At the beginning of the [[Project Apollo|Apollo program]] Kraft retired as a flight director in order to concentrate on management and mission planning. In 1972 he became director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (later [[Johnson Space Center]]), following in the footsteps of his mentor [[Robert Gilruth]]. He held the position until his retirement from NASA in 1982. During his retirement, Kraft has consulted for numerous companies including [[IBM]] and [[Rockwell International]], and he published an autobiography entitled ''Flight: My Life in Mission Control''.
 |link=Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.}}