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In 1957, Sputnik 1 supplied the needed boost to get the U.S. space program off its pad, and the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration began its talent hunt. Kraft volunteered. He was assigned to study the problems and needs of running ground operations for manned space flight. What he was getting into was a far cry from the crude trailers and optical trackers of his Langley days, but he was ideally suited for the job in both training and temperament. "There's a natural wedding between the technologies of aircraft test flight and space test flight," explains Dr. Robert Gilruth, Kraft's boss at Langley and now director of the Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston. Kraft even lost his ulcer in the satisfaction of his new duties.
Buffalo Steak. Now a veteran of 22 launches, he is calm enough about it all to leave his exciting job behind when he drives his 1963 cream-colored Chevrolet home from the Houston space center to his four-bedroom brick ranch house in the nearby village of Friendswood. He sees to it that his daughter Kristi-Anne, 10, takes piano lessons; he takes his son Gordon, 13, to ball games at the Astrodome. He treats his wife to dinner out on Saturday evenings, takes the family to a nearby Episcopal church on Sundays, and tries to get in some golf when he can. When visitors drop in, he likes to tend bar, specializing in frozen daiquiris. An adventurous eater, he makes a point of ordering buffalo steak and chocolate-covered beans when such delicacies are available.
But all his calmness cannot begin to mask the pervading enthusiasm that he brings to the drama of charting new paths along a scientific frontier−a frontier that he sees expanding indefinitely. "We're going to find man flying in space for as long as a year some time in the future," he predicts. "The doom-and-gloom bit about man's inability to perform in a hostile environment has been vastly overplayed." His optimism, however, does not exceed his engineering caution. "We're doing all this within the realm of logic, precision and nature," he insists. "I don't look at my job for the romance I might get out of it. But I know that what we're doing is extremely important to the history, prestige and scientific development of this country."