Milton Windler, a former NASA flight director, passed away at the age of 94. He began his career with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and later joined NASA, where he was appointed as a flight director in 1968. His work spanned the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, as well as the Skylab missions.
During the Apollo program, Windler served as a flight director for Apollo 8, 10, 12, 14, and 15. He was the lead flight director for the Apollo 13 mission, where he coordinated efforts to develop return trajectories for the damaged spacecraft after an explosion in the service module. For his contributions to Apollo 13, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1970.
Windler also managed flight planning for the Skylab missions, introducing real-time scheduling systems to accommodate scientific objectives. Following his time at NASA, he worked on the development of the Canadarm for the space shuttle program and later consulted on operations and verification procedures for the International Space Station.
Born in 1932 in Hampton, Virginia, Windler held a degree in aeronautical engineering from Virginia Tech. He served in the U.S. Air Force for four years before returning to the Langley Research Center. He eventually relocated to Houston to work at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now known as the Johnson Space Center.
