One of the most elusive and controversial figures in NASA’s history, George W. S. Abbey was called “the Dark Lord,” “the Godfather,” and “UNO”—short for unidentified NASA official. He was said to be secretive, despotic, a Space Age Machiavelli. Yet Abbey had more influence on human spaceflight than almost anyone in history. His story has never been told—until now.    The Astronaut Maker takes readers inside NASA to learn the real story of how Abbey rose to power, from young pilot and wannabe astronaut to engineer, bureaucrat, and finally director of the Johnson Space Center. During a thirty-seven-year career, mostly out of the spotlight, he oversaw the selection of every astronaut class from 1978 to 1987, deciding who got to fly and when. He was with the Apollo 1 astronauts the night before the fatal fire in January 1967. He was in mission control the night of the Apollo 13 accident and organized the recovery effort. Abbey also led NASA’s recruitment of women and minorities as space shuttle astronauts and was responsible for hiring Sally Ride.    Written by Michael Cassutt, the coauthor of the acclaimed astronaut memoirs DEKE! and We Have Capture, and informed by countless hours of interviews with Abbey and his family, friends, adversaries, and former colleagues, The Astronaut Maker is the ultimate insider’s account of ambition and power politics at NASA. "NASA buffs will be fascinated by this profile of an undervalued figure whose most significant legacy, Cassutt concludes, was at the human level—making ‘spaceflight available to all, regardless of citizenship, gender, color, or ethnic background.’" -  Publishers Weekly   "The real book about the manned space program would be a book about George Abbey."  —Richard Truly, former astronaut and administrator of NASA Michael Cassutt  is the coauthor of DEKE! , the autobiography of astronaut Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, and We Have Capture , the autobiography of astronaut Lt. Gen. Thomas Stafford, and the author of three editions of Who’s Who in Space (1987, 1993, 1999). He has also written eight space-themed novels and thirty short stories published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction and elsewhere. As a television writer and producer, Cassutt has been a member of the writing team of a dozen different series, from The Twilight Zone to Max Headroom to The Dead Zone . He is currently co–executive producer of SyFy Channel’s series Z Nation . The Astronaut Maker How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation By Michael Cassutt Chicago Review Press Incoporated Copyright © 2018 St. Croix Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-61373-700-2 Contents Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication Page, Abbreviations, Prologue, Part I: "Don't Send Me There", 1 October Sky, 2 The Abbeys, 3 Annapolis, 4 Air Force, 5 Dyna-Soar, 6 Boeing, Part II: "Before This Decade Is Out", 7 Destination: Moon, 8 North American Aviation, 9 Houston and the Manned Spacecraft Center, 10 Astronaut Abbey, 11 The Phillips Report, 12 Flight, 13 Countdown, 14 Ashes, 15 Commitment, 16 From the Earth to the Moon, 17 Challenge, 18 One Week in August, Part III: "The Quintessential Staffer", 19 Mission Accomplished, 20 Apollo 13, 21 Stability, 22 Gravity, 23 The Space Shuttle, 24 The Soviets, 25 Skylab, 26 The Ace Moving Company, 27 Apollo-Soyuz, Part IV: "Ten Consecutive Miracles Followed by an Act of God", 28 The Right Stuff, 29 The Next Generation, 30 Approach and Landing, 31 Thirty-Five New Guys, 32 Problems, 33 Those Other Astronauts, 34 STS-1, Part V: "Go at Throttle Up", 35 The Used Spaceship, 36 Operational Flight, 37 Frequent Flying, 38 1984, 39 The Breaking Point, 40 The Day the Earth Stood Still, 41 Recovery, 42 Marooned, Part VI: "A National Quasi-Emergency", 43 PEPCON, 44 The Space Exploration Initiative, 45 Synthesis, 46 Space Council, 47 Dan Goldin, 48 Space Cowboys, 49 Redesign, 50 Hubble Rescue, 51 A Space Odyssey, 52 Return to JSC, Part VII: "Together to the Stars", 53 A New Direction, 54 The Total Equation, 55 Crises on Mir, 56 First Element, 57 End Game, 58 The Journey Continues, Acknowledgments, Notes, Bibliography, Index, Photos insert, CHAPTER 1 October Sky OCTOBER CAN BE LONELY on the plains of Montana. Temperatures might reach sixty degrees Fahrenheit during the day, but they fall fast at sunset, to freezing and below. The wind can be biting. And US Route 12 on the long eastbound stretch between Missoula and Helena is not the place you want to pull to the side of the road. Even during daylight, there's not much to see, except scrub, clusters of pines, low rounded hills. Unless you're looking at the sky. It is Sunday, October 6, 1957, early evening. A 1955 Oldsmobile sits by the eastbound side of the highway. There are pockets of early snow on the darkened dirt to either side, but there's no traffic beyond the odd slow-moving sem