There are men I never hear about who suit up the astronauts on the launch pad and close the hatch behind them.

They’re called the closeout crew, and they work in the White Room — the clean-room environment at the top of the service structure, at the level of the spacecraft hatch. Their job is to help the astronauts into the capsule, check their connections, close and seal the hatch, and walk away knowing that those men are about to ride a rocket.

The White Room is not white for cleanliness in the pharmaceutical sense. It’s painted white, climate controlled, positive-pressure ventilated to keep contamination out of the spacecraft. The crew enters wearing cleanroom garments. Technicians who have been working on the spacecraft go through decontamination to get in.

Guenter Wendt is the pad leader for the Mercury and Gemini programs — the man in charge of the White Room. The astronauts call him the “Pad Führer,” which he takes as a term of respect (it fits with his German background and his absolute authority over the pad operations). He is exacting, detail-oriented, and the last person to see the astronauts before launch. He will be in the White Room for Apollo as well.

When John Glenn climbed into Friendship 7, Wendt was there. When Shepard lit the candle, Wendt had sealed the hatch. After the fire, when the investigation team opened the hatch of Apollo 1, Wendt was on the pad.

I’ve read that the astronauts feel Wendt’s presence as a reassurance — his thoroughness, his attention to every last detail before close-out, is the last quality check before the launch sequence. If Wendt signed off, the spacecraft is ready.

There are thousands of people like Wendt in this program. People with specific, essential roles that nobody announces at press conferences. The program is a machine made of people, and every person in it matters.

Wendt matters. The closeout crew matters. They’re the last human hands on the spacecraft before it goes.