The Witnesses Will Not Be Silenced — FREDERICK CALDER

FREDERICK CALDER - NASA Flight Director

Frederick Arthur Calder (b. 1933) traveled an unusual road to his storied career as a NASA flight director. After completing a masters in physics at Cornell University, Calder was graduated from Harvard Law School in 1959. Calder subsequently joined legendary New York law firm Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon. Amid rumors that Calder had ghost-written significant passages of Louis Nizer’s well-known memoir, My Life in Court, Calder departed the firm to join NASA as special counsel.

The space agency soon realized that Calder’s facility in physics and his administrative brilliance made him uniquely suited to mission planning and execution, and he joined Eugene Kranz, Christopher Kraft, and John Hodge as one of the Apollo program’s early and eminent flight directors. Calder retired from NASA in 1975 and has since been one of its most outspoken former employees.

Calder currently lives in Valley Village, California.