TROY – When the Apollo 1 command module burned on Jan. 27, 1967, killing the crew of three astronauts, the nation’s program to reach the moon teetered on complete failure.

NASA turned to RPI-trained aeronautical engineer George M. Low to take over redesign of the spaceship and keep the nation on the path to putting men on the moon by the end of the 1960s.

“Low always viewed is as the time he worked hard as a dirty-hands engineer,” said Richard Jurek, author of the forthcoming “The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA’s Visionary Leader George M. Low.”

Low’s coolness, sense of humor, inquisitiveness and demand for solutions saved Apollo by redesigning the command module. The hand-on work uncovered flawed hardware that existed in the Apollo command module, a constant threat to cause another disaster.

Under Low’s leadership, engineers pulled apart all 2 million parts in the command module and rebuilt it, Jurek said. They would make 1,341 changes.

An escape hatch that couldn’t be opened, malfunctioning toggle switches, uninsulated wiring on the floor of the capsule, bad circuit breakers, problems with valve, poorly wired switches and a lack of backup systems were discovered, Jurek said.

“It led to the questioning of everything. He came in and turned it around,” Jurek said.

Low helped launch the drive to get to the Moon when President John F. Kennedy came to NASA in 1961 looking to energize the U.S. space program and grab the nation’s attention. His contribution takes on special meaning as the celebrations and remembrances are held this summer. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landed safely on the moon on July 20, 1969, and walked the surface a few hours later.

“It led to the questioning of everything. He came in and turned it around,” Jurek said.

His contribution takes on special meaning as the celebrations and remembrances are held this summer. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landed safely on the moon on July 20, 1969, and walked the surface a few hours later.

With the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing to be celebrated July 20, Low’s contribution is unknown to many. But his thoroughness, imagination, curiosity and engineering smarts touched nearly every aspect of America's manned space exploration.

Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the Space Shuttle, Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz mission all had Low’s touch of attention to detail and solid engineering. SUCH AS He was NASA’s chief of manned spaceflight, filling a key administrative and engineering role that while not necessarily celebrated by the public was key to each Apollo moon mission.

“He’s the persistent but quiet man behind the scenes. He’s the one who shows the difference one person can have,” Jurek said.

Low's career would come full circle at RPI: He served as the institutes 14th president from 1976 until his death from cancer in 1984.

To write his book, Jurek’s dove into Low’s archives at RPI, where diaries, letters and other papers revealed the man and the engineer.

The Apollo command module was completely reconceived under Low’s direction to ensure it could fly to the moon and return, safely. His attention to detail and encyclopedic memory of everything he touched in the space program changed the way Apollo was engineered. He created the Configuration Control Board that ensured a technical modification change as small as a toggle switch in one part of the complicated Apollo craft wouldn’t somehow cause problems elsewhere in the system.

His examination started by questioning the module's entrance. The door was bolted shut to protect astronauts during space travel, but it trapped them inside if they needed to escape an internal catastrophe, said Jurek. Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were trapped in the module when the capsule caught fire during a training exercise. Their deaths drove the quest for safety in the nation's small and closely knit space flight community.

“Ask the right question. He felt that rather strongly,” Jurek said.

Low arrived at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1944. An early decision to switch his field of study from mechanical to aeronautical engineering changed history.

“He discovered aeronautical engineering in the Ricketts Building. He got swept away,” Jurek said.

“Everything I did at NASA got its start there,” Jurek said, recalling Low’s remarks about his journey from RPI, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical engineering, into the heart of American outer space endeavors.

Low was born in Austria. Low was Jewish and his family fled for the U.S. when the Nazi's took over the country in 1938. Low served in the U.S. Army in World War II and became a U.S. citizen.

Low’s passion, his inquisitiveness and his managerial skills are detailed in Jurek’s biography which will be published Dec. 1 by the University of Nebraska’s “Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Spaceflight” series.

Low started at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and rose to work on the planning committee that organized the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA. Low’s committee came up with the plan to send a man to the moon that was the basis of Kennedy's famous process to put a man on the moon.

Low “was terribly, terribly busy; long, long hours. Complete dedication to the mission of getting to the moon,” said his oldest son, Mark.

More Information See RPI's video on George M. Low and the school's display about him See More Collapse

Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969, carrying Armstrong, the mission commander; Michael Collins, the module pilot; and Aldrin, the lunar module pilot. While Collins remained in the orbiter on July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin landed in the lunar module Eagle in the in the moon's Sea of Tranquility. The three astronauts returned to Earth on July 24, 1069, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

“He was in mission control for most of the mission,” said Low, who, like his father, was at Cape Kennedy for the launch.

Mark Low was 17 when the moon landing occurred. He remembers watching it on television and sharing it in the community of families with connections to NASA's astronauts, engineers and others working in the space program.

“We all knew this was very cool stuff and very, very interesting and important,” Low said of he and his four younger siblings. His brother, G. David Low, would become an astronaut flying aboard the space shuttle. Their father and mother, Mary Ruth McNamara of Troy, met when the elder Low was at RPI.

Low rose to become deputy director of NASA before leaving to lead RPI. The institute is saluting him on the anniversary of the moon walk. His NASA and RPI legacy can be seen in the George M. Low Gallery on the fourth floor of the institute's George M. Low Center for Industrial Innovation. The gallery tells Low’s story which in many ways mirrors the story of NASA.

Curt Breneman, RPI’s dean of sciences, recalled being a 13-year-old boy entranced by Apollo 11’s adventure, space flight and science. Breneman and Jurek said they were part of the generation that can be considered the “children of Apollo.”

“This was totally inspiring for a 13-year-old. Watching the moon landing and thinking about what that represented; how audacious it had been to propose doing that. In fact, George Low was one of the individuals who provided that information to the Kennedy administration that we really could do this,” Breneman said.

Walking through the gallery, Breneman points out the progression of the Apollo program under Low’s direction. The gallery is filled with mementos from Low’s involvement. It includes several pieces signed by Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, who rarely autographed items.

“He took what he learned and thought outside the box. George Low was the heart and soul of the Apollo program. That’s reflected in what you see here,” Breneman said.

Low’s career shows how RPI engineers create new fields after they graduate.

“He was trained to learn how to learn and to be interested in new things. He evolved a career that had greatly impactful results but he hadn’t planned it that way. He did the right thing. He solved problems when he could find them and took leadership when it was needed,” Breneman said.

And the industrial and scientific advancements that grew from the nation’s investment in Apollo can be credited to Low, Jurek said.

“The fourth wave of the industrial revolution really got spun off from the Apollo program that George Low set in motion,” Jurek said.

Low’s legacy at RPI included the development of the Rensselaer 2000 plan to guide the university’s future, the development of the Rensselaer Technology Park in North Greenbush, the Center for Industrial Innovation now named for him, and the institute's business incubator.

But after 50 years, Low's contribution to Apollo might be his greatest accomplishment.

“I’m sure it would have been his greatest source of pride,” Mark Low said. “This was a culmination of hard work, challenges, achievement, that probably was unparalleled.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the wife of George M. Low, the late NASA engineer and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president. Her name was Mary Ruth McNamara.