Go, Flight!

Rick Houston is a journalist with twenty years of experience and a special interest in spaceflight history. He is the author of Wheels Stop: The Tragedies and Triumphs of the Space Shuttle Program, 1986–2011 (Nebraska, 2013) and NASCAR’s Greatest Race: The 1992 Hooters 500 . He was also the associate producer and consultant for the documentary film Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo .¿ Milt Heflin worked for NASA for nearly half a century, including on the prime recovery ships during splashdown and post-landing activities for Apollo 8 , Apollo 10 , Apollo 16 , Apollo 17 , each of the three Skylab flights, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project . He later became a flight director who led the mission control team during the flight of STS-61, widely considered one of the most important missions of the entire thirty-year Space Shuttle program. At the time of his retirement, he served as associate director (technical) at Johnson Space Center. John Aaron is a legendary former flight controller widely credited with saving the Apollo 12 flight and playing an instrumental role in the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew.