John William "Jack" King (February 12, 1931 – June 11, 2015) was Chief of Public Information and a Public Affairs Officer for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

. He is best known for his work as

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

Chief of Public Information during projects

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

Gemini Gemini may refer to: Space * Gemini (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac ** Gemini in Chinese astronomy * Project Gemini, the second U.S. crewed spaceflight program * Gemini Observatory, consisting of telescopes in the Northern ...

and

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

. As part of this role, he provided public announcements and commentary for several of the mission launches. He is best known for his announcement of the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, an ...

launch, which earned him the nickname "Voice of Apollo". The well-known commentary from that launch has been reused in songs and advertisements, and was included in a 2011 collection of NASA sounds from historic spaceflights that can be used as ringtones.

Career

King grew up in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, the son of a local sportswriter, and attended

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

. Prior to joining NASA, King worked for the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

. He opened the AP's

Cape Canaveral , image = cape canaveral.jpg , image_size = 300 , caption = View of Cape Canaveral from space in 1991 , map = Florida#USA , map_width = 300 , type =Cape , map_caption = Location in Florida , location ...

bureau in 1958, when he was 27 years old. King joined NASA in 1960, and served as the Kennedy Space Center's Chief of Public Information from 1960 to 1971, and as NASA's Public Affairs Officer from 1971 to 1975. After NASA, he spent two years as Director of Public Affairs for the U.S.

Energy Research and Development Administration The United States Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) was a United States government organization formed from the split of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1975. It assumed the functio ...

(later part of the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

), and another 15 years as executive vice president of

Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum Corporation (often abbreviated Oxy in reference to its ticker symbol and logo) is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States, and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the ...

. He was appointed director of communications at the

Fuqua School of Business The Fuqua School of Business (pronounced ) is the business school of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It enrolls more than 1,300 students in degree-seeking programs. Duke Executive Education also offers non-degree business education and ...

in 1993. In 1997, King returned to Cape Canaveral and the U.S. manned space program, joining the

United Space Alliance :''In this article, USA refers to the United Space Alliance, not the United States.'' United Space Alliance (USA) was a spaceflight operations company. USA was a joint venture which was established in August 1995 as a Limited Liability Company ...

, where he served as spokesman. King officially retired in October 2010, but continued to serve as a volunteer public affairs officer for NASA.

Sampling in music

The notable line of "...20 seconds and counting..." and "... Five, four, three, two, one, zero. All engine running. Lift off, we have a lift off" from the

launch has been used in songs like Lift Off by Kanye West & Jay-Z, and on other works for projects from acts like Def Leppard's

Hysteria Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...

Personal life

King was a widower, his wife Evelyn having died in 2005. They were married 39 years. He had three children and five grandchildren. He was a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. King died on June 11, 2015, at the age of 84 of

congestive heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

References

Bibliography

External links

* * * 2012 Interview with King (4m, 38s).
King's Apollo 11 liftoff commentary
(audio) * (video) * {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Jack W NASA people 2015 deaths 1931 births Boston College alumni People from Boston Catholics from Massachusetts Duke University staff Recipients of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal