Jack Kinzler

On May 14, 1973, NASA launched Skylab, the United States' first space station. During the launch, a meteorite shield prematurely deployed, which ripped off the shield and one of the station's solar panels, and the debris prevented another solar panel from fully deploying. Without protection from the solar heat and low on electricity due to the lost and damaged solar panels, the temperature inside the station rose dangerously, threatening to ruin on-board film and food and eventually make the station uninhabitable as overheated plastic components would exude toxic gases.

For his contribution that saved Skylab, Kinzler was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1973.

Kinzler also designed the commemorative plaque installed on the Lunar Module for each of the Apollo landing missions. The stainless steel plaque included facsimiles of the signatures of all mission astronauts and of the president of the United States along with a depiction of the Eastern and Western Hemisphere of the Earth. The Apollo 11 plaque included the inscription, "Here men from the Planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind."

He established the Technical Services Division at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which included approximately 180 technicians skilled in the various tasks required by the space program, including machining and sheet metal work, welding, electronics, modeling, plastics, and electroplating, along with a field test branch. Kinzler led the Division from 1961 until his retirement in 1977.

As a young man, Kinzler built model planes and flew them in competitions, turning down a scholarship at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University to pursue his interest in aeronautics. He parlayed his model-building skills into a job with National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics building models for wind tunnel testing. When the committee became the core of the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958, Kinzler stayed on.

Jack Kinzler (January 9, 1920 – March 4, 2014) was a NASA engineer, the former chief of the Technical Services Center at NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, known within the agency as Mr. Fix It. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for creating the solar shield that saved Skylab after the original micrometeoroid shield was lost during launch of the station. His other contributions included the flagstaff and plaques used on the Moon for each of the Apollo program Moon landings and the special six iron golf club head with which Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard made his two famous golf drives on the Moon.