Blast from the past: 1969 restored at Mission Control
Space center’s historic room comes to life with Apollo-era touches
When Apollo-era flight director Gene Kranz walked into the newly refurbished Mission Control room, it felt like old times.
Amber-colored ashtrays dot the consoles, filled with discarded cigarette butts. Papers and No. 2 pencils are strewn about the room alongside coffee mugs sporting 1970s colors of orange, yellow and brown.
Even the console displays are set to the moment America landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.
It’s a stark contrast from two years ago, when stained carpet squares, flickering lights and ripped upholstery were the norm.
“It was dazzling. I was overwhelmed,” Kranz said Friday. “All of the sudden, you were 50 years younger and you wanted to walk back in that room and work.”
It’s taken years — and $5 million — for NASA’s Johnson Space Center to restore the historic Mission Control room to its glory days. But on Friday, Kranz, alongside NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, former flight direc
tor Glynn Lunney and other dignitaries, unveiled the room for the first time. It will be open for visitors as part of the Space Center tram tour starting Monday.
“We’re commemorating history with an eye for the future,” Bridenstine said.
The historic room was famously used for the Gemini, Apollo and a handful of space shuttle missions before being decommissioned in the 1990s after the space shuttle Discovery spent seven days in space in 1992. Mission Control had fallen into disrepair, and in 2015 the National Park Service designated the National Historic Landmark as “threatened.”
Kranz, who spearheaded the restoration effort, said Friday the room was essentially abandoned in 1996. Visitors would leave Coke cans and water bottles on the consoles, taking souvenirs such as ashtrays home with them.
“Unfortunately, I came to accept it, and this was not right,” Kranz said “We knew (the restoration) had to be done.”
The goal was to have the newly restored room ready for visitors in time for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing on July 20. They were able to reach that goal with the help of Space Center Houston, Johnson’s visitor center, the city of Webster and private donors. Johnson was not involved in the fundraising.
Mark Geyer, director of Johnson, agrees that the room looks like the pictures. But it’s about more than just the room, he said.
“The importance of the restoration is not the consoles or the wallpaper, but that the artifacts remind us of the people that made this incredible mission possible,” he said.
Kranz said the attention to detail in the room is impeccable. Restorers tracked down the original companies that made the wallpaper and carpeting and had them create facsimiles of the originals. Former mission controllers were asked about their cigarette brand of choice and what type of coffee mug they used.
But there is one thing the room is missing: smoke.
“Pipe, cigar and cigarette smoke (was) so thick, that when you took your clothes off at home, your wife said, ‘Where have you been?’ ” Kranz laughed. “She thought you were at a bar.”