Well, we're going to get started.
Thank you so much for coming out to this dedication ceremony.
I want to do a very special welcome to our former Johnson director, Mr.
Jerry Griffin.
We also have Mr.
George Abbey with us as well.
This is a special day for us here at the Johnson Space Center
as we're going to be celebrating our 60th anniversary.
We kicked it off earlier with the panel of former senator directors,
and we're going to have a family celebration tonight at the gill roof,
where we're going to have our community come together
to celebrate Johnson Space Center
Right now, you know, we're celebrating Jesse
we were founded back in 1961.
President Kennedy committed the nation to achieve the goal of landing
a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth before the end of the decade.
And at that time, NASA's space task group
in charge of America's human spaceflight program
was already working on Project Mercury to put astronauts into Earth orbit.
But with the additional task of a human lunar landing, it soon
after its facilities at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
And the agency decided it needed a dedicated field for human spaceflight.
And so on September 19th 1961
after evaluating multiple sites around the country
NASA announced that the new manned space flight center would be built near Houston.
And that's the origins of our home.
We were later renamed to the Johnson Space Center in honor of former
president Lyndon Johnson in 1973.
But from the Mercury Gemini Apollo and shuttle programs
to the International Space Station and Orion the center has been
the forefront of America's human spaceflight programs.
Today we're here to commemorate this legacy.
Thanks to the members of the Manned Spaceflight Operations Association
who have donated a trio of benches
in honor of the support
that was given by human spaceflight control teams of the past.
These Granite Benches were privately funded
by 98 of the nonprofit organizations members and installed here.
We're thankful
to the Manned Spaceflight Operations Association for dedicating these benches
in honor of the flight control teams who captured the world's attention
and demonstrated the power of America's vision and technology
through many historic missions spanning Gemini to shuttle.
These benches will serve as a constant reminder of this lasting legacy
as we work to inspire the next generation of explorers
with our International Space Station and with our ARTEMUS program.
Now I'm going to us offer the stage to Mr.
Jerry Griffin, who will give some remarks.
And thank you, Vanessa.
This has been a day that is taking all to get here for
for a bunch of guys that just had an idea.
And that bunch of people were in the manned space Flight Operations
Association.
We referred to it sometimes as MSL, a shorter
Johnson Space Center did an amazing job
on the restoration of the marker
on the third floor here that that many of these missions
were falling from all of these and several of those
When that was finished, by the way, that was Sandra
Bentley is standing right here and she was a moving force
early on and kept hammering on the door and
and of different people here at the center and and really got it done.
Then the Webster community and others around here funded the rest of that.
What we we thought of them as a way.
I'm former director now director emeritus of the organization.
We have three members here.
I think we got Bill Reeves and we've got Spencer Gardiner and we've got Jerry Ross.
I think that's all that's here.
We got to
thinking that, you know, we pay tribute to the facility
and restored it to what it was like the day we walked out of it.
And we said, you know what?
We haven't recognized the people that passed through these portals
and by the way, it involves more.
When Vanessa says flight control, it was all of his flight operations sitting.
Clearly, the people over in an adjacent building in Building 45
called the Mission Evaluation Room, which was our savior
when we had a problem in the motor
flight crew.
People that passed through here,
lots of people, lots of government people was a contractor people.
So we've got we don't charge any dues.
We got over 6000 members.
We haven't located all of them, but we've got a good chunk of them.
And when it came time to do something, we started
digging in ideas of what we might do.
And we had a monument and I and we've looked at things
that almost were as big as the T-38s out in front of Space Center Houston.
And then we looked at
all kinds of other things that would have every name that we can identify.
Well, those got to be a little bit too much.
So we turn to Gene Kranz
was on our board, and
he actually is a member of an organization called Super Saver.
And that was there for 100 guys that flew in the mid fifties.
And they've got a similar arrangement
to this for the different outfits at the Wright-Patterson U.S.
Air Force Museum.
So it was really Gene's
idea that maybe we could go
something like that is low profile, low maintenance
and it would last for a long, long time.
These are black granite and other durable
up steps.
JSC, again,
we had to have a place to put it in.
These things are 1500 pounds apiece in the sidewalk, wouldn't carry them.
So again, we got Sandra totally involved.
And now the other people I'm leaving people out here I know
we JSC actually put this
slab to their specifications which
deep deepened the sidewalks and
Bill Reeves, our president of the association
now was totally instrumental in getting these things
made and built and shipped to us and all of that.
So it was a real team effort.
It kind of fits our partnership thing.
We were talking about this morning
on some of the space programs where you get commercial guys.
Well, in this case, you had a nonprofit organization
and had made these possible
the manned spaceflight organization is a must way,
I should say, has a website, and I invite you to see it when you can.
You'll notice this ends with shuttle
for those of you that have ever flown
missions and fighter aircraft,
we're in a fingertip position here.
You got the lead here yet.
Number two over here and number three over here.
We didn't do I assess is still an operational program.
That Generation
will have their chance to do something similar either
on this side or other side of the building or something sometime later
so in the same of then Artemus,
uh, Artemus will have his chance.
So that's the story of the benches today.
We want to dedicate these benches to the
to the people that pass through here, dedicate poems
early to the Johnson Space Center for your safekeeping.
And and we look forward to
having visitors look and question what they are
and and we're going to do something for our entire organization later,
probably in the summer.
And we couldn't get them all here even the people
that live locally, if we had invited them, we might have been overwhelmed.
That was us.
But we wanted to get this step and dedicate this to JSC.
And all the people that passed through here.
So thank you very much.
And thank you, Jerry.
And I want to thank all of the members of the master.
Okay.
And also agree and for all of the people that will come to visit
as space center Houston visitors come this way to go upstairs.
They will get an opportunity to see this and to to remember and reflect
on all of the support that was given to make all of those missions possible.
I want to also thank you all for coming out and again,
to those that are able to join us tonight to join us for the 60th.
And we will take some questions.
Jerry and I will be available for the media to take some questions
for the next few minutes.
Thank you
and then I can I want different things after
for those years, for mercury generally,
and even for this SDP and
Skylab years.
It was a young bunch
thank goodness we had some astronomers in our midst.
It's a physicist to make sure I can.
Answer.
That doesn't like for you want
you want to be a little more.
You know I don't know some.
Pretty good collection for sure is the one.
I know you know to make the case.