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[i]Were flight operations to be part of the design center, that is, MSC in Houston or part of the operations center at Kennedy Space Center where Mercury controls were housed? Goddard Space Flight Center had the attraction of being conveniently located near the National Capital and NASA Headquarters. When the Kennedy Space Flight Center was organized, G. Merritt Preston and some of his preflight operations personnel became a part of the new center and strengthened the idea that the control center should remain with the launch operations crews in Florida. Travel also was a factor. Would travel requirements be greater or less if the control center were located in Maryland, Texas or Florida? Could communications be enhanced by locating at the launch area? By the latter stages of Mercury, some of the remote flight control stations, as at Bermuda, were being shut down. It had become more and more apparent that through networking a control center could be effectively established at any number of points in the network. But both John Hodge and Chris Kraft initially suggested that the Florida location might be most reasonable. Further discussions with Walter Williams, Bob Gilruth, and the Gemini and Apollo Program Offices, among others, resulted in the decision to locate in Houston. It was, all agreed, a happy and fortuitous decision which strengthened the relationship between the engineering design and flight operations programs. Mission control and operations soon became a major component of MSC responsibilities.[/i]
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