Glynn S. Lunney dies at 84; oversaw NASA flights from Mission Control

Glynn S. Lunney, the NASA flight director who played a major role in America’s space program and was hailed for his leadership in the rescue of three Apollo 13 astronauts when their spacecraft was rocked by an explosion en route to the moon in 1973, died on March 19 at his home in Clear Lake, Texas. He was 84.

The cause was stomach cancer, his son Shawn said.

Lunney (rhymes with “sunny”), who joined NASA at its inception in 1958 and became its chief flight director in 1968, worked out of Mission Control in Houston in developing the elaborate procedures for the flight of Apollo 11, sending Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

on their pioneering journey to the moon in July 1969.

He managed the July 1975 mission in which an Apollo spacecraft with three astronauts docked with a two-man Russian Soyuz spaceship. Each vehicle carried equipment that would facilitate another linkup someday if an international rescue mission were needed. The Americans and the Russians carried out joint experiments and exchanged commemorative gifts in what became a step toward cooperation among nations in space aboard the International Space Station.

But Lunney was remembered especially for his take-charge efforts in the dramatic rescue of the Apollo 13 astronauts James L. Lovell Jr., Fred

W. Haise Jr. and John L. Swigert Jr.

Along with three other flight directors and numerous NASA scientists and astronauts at the command center, he worked out the complex plan that enabled them to make it back to Earth.

He retired from NASA in 1985 as manager of the space shuttle program, but he continued to lead human spaceflight activities through executive posts in private industry.

In addition to his son Shawn, Lunney is survived by his wife, Marilyn Jean (Kurtz) Lunney, who had been a nurse in a NASA forerunner research center; two other sons, Glynn Jr. and Bryan; his daughter, Jenifer Brayley; his brothers, Bill and Gerry; his sister, Carol; and 12 grandchildren.