"Bob was a true leader -- he forged relationships and was a mentor and friend," said Dr. Christopher C. Kraft Jr., who succeeded Gilruth as JSC director. "We were all blessed by his collegial approach."

He was the first director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, from 1962 to 1972. Before that he formed the Space Task Group at the Langley Research Center in Virginia, which was tasked with developing a manned space program. It eventually moved to Houston as the nucleus of the Manned Spacecraft Center.

Gilruth was tasked in 1959 with putting a man in space and returning him safely to Earth. Shortly thereafter, he was given the daunting task of sending astronauts to the moon and back.

Though not as flamboyant and well-known as his counterpart at Marshall Space Flight Center, Dr. Wernher von Braun, Gilruth left an imprint on the space program still felt today with the space shuttle and construction of the International Space Station.

His style was a low-key approach that drew upon the open and collegiate atmosphere of the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics (NACA) that evolved into NASA.

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Dr. Maxime Faget, former chief engineer at JSC and the architect of spacecraft from the Mercury capsule to the space shuttle, recalled the rivalry between the centers and how the two directors came to work together.

"There was some trouble with von Braun’s group," Faget said. "But we came to an understanding that they would build the launch vehicles and we would build the spacecraft."

JSC director George Abbey said Gilruth’s vision was unceasing. He even led the first delegation to the former Soviet Union to begin work on what would become the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in which the two countries docked their spacecraft together in 1975.

"Bob Gilruth enabled this nation’s space program," Abbey said. "And he left a legacy – this center."

Veteran astronaut John Young, who commanded Apollo 16 and the first space shuttle mission, said Gilruth’s genius [was] as an engineer, especially during the Gemini program. Numerous problems developed in trying to dock spacecraft, which would be a key issue during Apollo missions.

"He taught us to accommodate and plan for the unknown," Young said. "Some have forgotten those lessons, but they’re still with us today."

Kraft, who began work for Gilruth in 1945 at what is now NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, also recalled another lesson he and other managers learned from Gilruth.

Following interminable meetings at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. concerning the Apollo program, Gilruth showed his senior engineers and staff how to unwind on the long plane ride back to Houston.

"He introduced us to something he called "mother’s milk," Kraft said. "The rest of us called them martinis."

Following the ceremony, center director Abbey, along with Gilruth’s widow Jo and daughter Barbara Jean Wyatt, planted a live oak tree in JSC’s memorial grove. The grove commemorates U.S. space pioneers and crews such as Space Shuttle Challenger and Apollo 1 who gave their lives in the line of duty.