By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Cosmosphere took time to remember NASA Flight Director Glynn Lunney. Lunney passed away last week. The Luney family was very close to the museum according to Mimi Meredith.
“We were very fortunate that throughout his retirement life Glynn Lunney was a great friend to the Comosphere,” Meredith said. “Both he and his wife were here on multiple occasions, And it even made it a richer experience knowing his story which is often overlooked.”
Lunney was one of four flight directors for NASA during the Apollo 13 space mission and was instrumental in getting the astronauts home safely.
“He and Gerry Griffin, together were the ones who made the proposal to the NASA leadership that Apollo 13 should continue around the moon which was huge and obviously successful.” Meredith said.
The procedure was known as free return trajectory and was a maneuver adopted instead of turning the spacecraft around while more than halfway to the moon following the Apollo 13 explosion.
Meredith says the Cosmosphere will remember Lunney most as a person that showed how much went on behind the scenes during the space race of the 1960s and 1970s.
“Most importantly I think Glynn represented the whole story of the space race and that it wasn’t just astronauts and cosmonauts,” Meredith said. “In fact it was engineers and it was Mission Control and it was suit designers and it was welders and all of the technicians involved. And that’s what we want to convey is that there is a place for everyone in space exploration.”
Along with the Apollo 13 mission, Lunney was also a major player in the Gemini 10 mission. For the Cosmosphere that is significant since both Gemini 10 and Apollo 13 are on display at the museum.
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