George Mueller: ensuring the ‘moonshot’

George Mueller was responsible for overseeing the completion of Project Apollo at NASA.
George Mueller was responsible for overseeing the completion of Project Apollo at NASA.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things,” President John F. Kennedy said in 1962, “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” No wonder, then, that a Miner played a major role in doing the hard work of ensuring a moon landing before the end of the ’60s. As an administrator in NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight from 1963-1969, George Mueller, a 1939 electrical engineering graduate, was responsible for overseeing the completion of Project Apollo. That task involved what the space agency calls “a remarkable series of management challenges … during a time when strong leadership and direction were critical to achieving success on a set of extraordinary goals.” Mueller established what came to be called the “all up” philosophy of rocket and spacecraft testing – an approach that dramatically reduced the number of tests it would take for a manned moon landing. Mueller’s philosophy made the Apollo 11 moon landing mission possible.

Share This Story

Spark a Memory?

Share your story! Fill out the form below to share your fondest memory or anecdote of S&T. If you'd prefer not typing, you can also share by phone at 833-646-3715 (833-Miner150).

Endurance was her middle name

Endurance was her middle name

The first woman to earn a degree from S&T, Eva Endurance Hirdler Greene, class of 1911, received the general science…

Major league research

Major league research

Three S&T faculty helped strike down claims that “juiced” baseballs were the cause of a spike in Major League home…

Setting new trends

Setting new trends

Tamiko Youngblood, MinE’92, MS EMgt’94, PhD EMgt’97, was a woman of many “firsts.” She was the first African American woman…

Katie (Fritts) and Mitchell Niehoff

Katie (Fritts) and Mitchell Niehoff

Katie (Fritts) and Mitchell Niehoff met in fall 2006 during that semester’s first meeting of the Perfect 10 Improv group….

Studying the past to improve the future

Studying the past to improve the future

Katy Bloomberg, who earned her bachelor’s degree in history in 2006, believes that her experience working in S&T’s Archives prepared…

All a-Twitter

All a-Twitter

The creator and co-founder of Twitter — Jack Dorsey — spent a couple of years studying computer science at Missouri…