Mission Control 'members only': NASA flight directors don new jacket

A woman in a blue jacket sits at a console with computers in mission control.

There are fewer of them then there are astronauts and no NASA spaceflight would be a success without them at the helm. Yet, if the public knows anything about them it is likely 50-year-old history, and probably none of them could be picked out of a crowd today.

To address that last point, NASA's flight directors have taken a page from the crews they support, if not also the Masters Tournament, Hells Angels and even Saturday Night Live's Five-Timers Club. There is now a flight director's jacket.

"The astronauts have iconic blue jackets that make them easily identifiable. Having a more uniform look would make it a little easier for us to tell the NASA story," said chief flight director Emily Nelson in an interview with collectSPACE. "It's a lot easier to tell a story if people know you have a story to tell."

"Having a unifying look was something we thought might be valuable," she said.

Chief flight director Emily Nelson (second from left) and flight director Scott Stover (second from right) wear their flight director jackets while posing with Steve Koerner, acting director of the Johnson Space Center (at left); Michael Altenhofen, senior advisor to the NASA Administrator (center); and astronaut Kjell Lindgren, deputy director of the flight ops directorate. (Image credit: NASA/Josh Valcarce)