Rocco Petrone

Early life The son of Italian immigrants, Anthony and Theresa Petrone, emigrated from Sasso di Castalda, Petrone was raised Roman Catholic and attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. There he played defensive tackle for the 1945 national football championship winning team. Graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1946, he served in West Germany from 1947 to 1950.

He also earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951, and later received an honorary doctorate from Rollins College. During two decades with the U.S. Army, Petrone took part in developing the Redstone rocket, the first U.S. ballistic missile and the vehicle used to launch America's first astronauts, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on their suborbital missions. He retired from the U.S. Army in 1966 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

NASA career

In 1960, Petrone was assigned to NASA. There, Petrone presided over the development of Saturn V launch operations, dubbing the period of preparation leading up to each launch "five-month marathons". He oversaw construction of all the launch elements of the Apollo program at Kennedy Space Center, including Launch Complex 39, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Crawler-Transporter, all of which were later modified for Space Shuttle operations. After his retirement from the Army in 1966 he continued to work for NASA as a civilian, being promoted to director of launch operations at KSC in July 1966. In September 1969, shortly after the Apollo 11 mission, he was appointed director of the entire Apollo program at NASA Headquarters. In 1972, Petrone was assigned additional responsibilities as program director of the NASA portion of the joint United States / Soviet Union Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.

In 1974, Petrone left the Marshall Center to accept an appointment at NASA headquarters, assuming the post of NASA Associate Administrator, the third-highest-ranking official within the agency. This was not the cause, however, of the launch failure that killed seven astronauts.

Petrone died on August 24, 2006, from complications related to diabetes in Palos Verdes Estates, California, aged 80. In February 2022, NASA renamed the Launch Control Center in Florida to the "Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center" in his honor.

Character Petrone was described as demanding by his NASA colleagues. Humboldt C. Mandell, Jr. said that once: