Through captivating photos and stories, a trio of veteran journalists have provided their audiences front-row seats to breathtaking launches. On May 1, they were honored for their distinguished careers covering space at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Kennedy Space Center Deputy Director Kelvin Manning was at the spaceport’s Press Site and unveiled three brass plates bearing the names of the honorees – Bob Granath, Red Huber, and Mark Kramer.
“Together, these three reporters have almost 115 years of experience reporting from Kennedy” Manning said. “Through factual reporting and compelling photographs, they helped make sure that people around the world knew the stories of Mercury, Apollo, Shuttle, and so much more.”
The inductees join the list of 79 other Kennedy Chroniclers whose names hang proudly on the wall in the “bullpen,” the room in the NASA News Center where media traditionally gather to research and file their stories during launches.
The honorees were nominated by other members of the news media and selected by a panel of NASA officials and current space reporters.
Bob Granath was at Lockheed Martin Space Operations in 1983 when the company was awarded NASA’s Shuttle Processing Contract. He served as editor and principal writer for the company’s award-winning company newspaper, the Star Gazer and later as media relations chief.
After transitioning to United Space Alliance in 1996, Granath continued creating, designing, and writing products to promote achievements in human spaceflight. Following the end of the Space Shuttle Program in 2012, he joined the Abacus Technology and, later, served at the Press Site as a contractor, supporting NASA Communications by writing and editing content for features, video, and multimedia presentations especially those focusing on NASA’s history.
Since retirement in 2019, Granath has served as a docent at Kennedy and continues to post about historic efforts to explore space on his website, SpaceAgeChronicle.com.
“Thank you very much for this recognition. It’s an honor and a humbling experience,” Granath said. “I had the privilege of telling the NASA story, and it’s truly been the best experience of my life.”
Mark Kramer is an Emmy Award-winning producer who worked for CBS News for 48 years, a wide variety of stories that took him around the globe.
As the CBS News space producer, traveled to the Kennedy Space Center more than 175 times, covering all the manned Apollo missions, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz (from Moscow), and witnessed 87 space shuttle launches.
Retiring in 2006, Kramer continued to work for CBS News as a freelancer for eight years, devoting most of that time to covering the end of the shuttle program and Soyuz flights to and from the International Space Station.
“It’s a great honor to be here today,” Kramer said. “Over the decades, I’ve covered 125 missions and Kennedy Space Center was home for me, the home that I came back to for every mission I covered.”
Red Huber was a part-time photo lab technician for the St. Petersburg Times when he first had the opportunity to travel to the Kennedy Space Center with a staff photographer to document the Apollo 15 Moon launch on July 26, 1971.
As a senior staff photojournalist at the Orlando Sentinel, he covered the U.S. space program for 40 years from Kennedy, including many rocket launches from what was then Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. His work has appeared worldwide online and in print in National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, and The New York Times.
Huber is an Emmy-nominated photojournalist and is an awardee of the 2006 Harry Kolcum Memorial News & Communication Award by the National Space Club Florida Committee and the 2018 Photojournalist of the Year-Society of Professional Journalist Florida Pro Chapter for his storytelling moments.
“I am so grateful for this honor,” Huber said. “Photographing a Moon rocket was epic for me. This was my beat, my home away from home. Thank you for an amazing journey.”
During the ceremony, attendees also remembered former Kennedy Public Affairs Director Hugh Harris, who conceived of the Chroniclers award in 1996 to commemorate the efforts of talented and dedicated communications professionals. Harris died in 2023 at the age of 90.
Harris understood that part of NASA’s mission was to keep the American people informed about their space program in a timely manner and the important role of the men and women.
The Chroniclers ceremony is always held at the beginning of May to honor the first U.S. human spaceflight, Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, on May 5, 1961. The 15-minute, 28-second flight sent astronaut Alan Shepard into orbit around Earth, ending with a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
For more on the award and biographies of all The Chroniclers, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/kenney/about/history/chroniclers/chronos-index.html.