AEM Co-Hosts Gilruth Tribute Celebration
The Gilruth Tribute Celebration will take place on Thursday, April 23 from 8 a.m. - 10 a.m. at the TCF Bank Stadium. The celebration honors the late University of Minnesota aeronautical engineering alumnus Robert Gilruth, known as the "Father of America's Human Space Flight program." Gilruth advised President Kennedy to put a man on the moon and led the Apollo program. Gilruth also oversaw 25 manned spaceflights, from the suborbital Mercury-Redstone 3 flight to Apollo 15 lunar landing mission in July 1971.
The celebration features NASA Kennedy Space Center Director, Robert Cabana. Cabana will help pay tribute to Gilruth and the many Minnesotans who helped take America into space. Cabana, a Minnesota native, was appointed to lead the Kennedy Space Center in October 2008. He has flown four space shuttle missions, serving as the pilot of Discovery on STS-41 in October 1990, the pilot of Discovery on STS-53 in December 1992, the commander of Columbia on STS-65 in July 1994, and the commander of Endeavour on STS-88, the first space station assembly mission, in December 1998.
For more information and to register for the event, please visit: www.z.umn.edu/v73
See also the Star Tribune article on the Gilruth Celebration: www.z.umn.edu/vq4
