Space Task Group

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The Space Task Group was a working group of engineers based at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Created in 1958, the group was part of NASA and was tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight program.

Created on November 5, 1958, the Space Task Group was headed by Robert Gilruth. Originally it consisted of only forty-five people, including eight secretaries and "computers" (the term for women who ran calculations on mechanical adding machines). Of its thirty-seven engineers, twenty-seven were from Langley Research Center and ten had been assigned from Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Original members of the group included Charles Donlan, Gilruth's deputy; Max Faget, head of engineering; Chuck Mathews, head of flight operations; Chris Kraft, also in flight operations; and Glynn Lunney, who at twenty-one was the youngest member of the group.

In 1959, the group was greatly expanded by the addition of thirty engineers from Canada, who had been left without jobs when the Avro Arrow project was cancelled. These "Canadians," many of whom were in fact British, included Jim Chamberlin, John Hodge, Owen Maynard, Rodney Rose and Tecwyn Roberts.