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Chris Kraft, 1st flight director for NASA, dies

WASHINGTON

Behind America’s late leap into orbit and triumphant small step on the moon was the agile mind and guts of steel of Chris Kraft, making split-second decisions that propelled the nation to once unimaginable heights.

Kraft, the creator and longtime leader of NASA’s Mission Control, died Monday in Houston, just two days after the 50th anniversary of what was his and NASA’s crowning achievement: Apollo 11’s moon landing. He was 95.

Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. never flew in space, but he “held the success or failure of American human spaceflight in his hands,” Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, told The Associated Press in 2011.

Kraft founded Mission Control and created the job of flight director – later comparing it to an orchestra conductor – and established how flights would be run as the space race between the U.S. and Soviets heated up.

Art Neville, member of Neville Brothers, Meters, dies at 81

NEW ORLEANS

Art Neville, a member of a storied New Orleans musical family who performed with his siblings in The Neville Brothers band and founded the groundbreaking funk group The Meters, died Monday. The artist nicknamed “Poppa Funk” was 81.

Neville’s manager, Kent Sorrell, said Neville died at his home.

“Art ‘Poppa Funk’ Neville passed away peacefully this morning at home with his adoring wife, Lorraine, by his side,” Sorrell said in an email.

The cause of death was not immediately available, but Neville had battled a number of health issues, including complications from back surgery.

Associated Press