Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "T. J. O'Malley" in English language version.
At T-Minus-18 seconds, O'Malley activated the Atlas rocket and immediately moved his hand to a red button that could deploy an escape tower should anything go wrong in the last few moments before launch.
[Mercury Operations Director Walt] Williams went after the air force, who held the Atlas contract with NASA, and the job of setting things right went to the toughest test conductor around, a hulking six-foot-one Irish altar boy by the name of Thomas J. O'Malley.
In 1962, when an Atlas rocket carried John Glenn into space, for the first orbit of the Earth by an American astronaut, Mr. O'Malley pushed the button to launch it.[dead link]
O'Malley is perhaps best known as the man who pushed the button to launch the Atlas rocket that carried astronaut John Glenn into orbit on Feb. 20, 1962.
Thomas J. O'Malley, the aviation engineer who pushed the button that launched the rocket that carried John Glenn into orbit in 1962, and who five years later played a major role in reviving the Apollo moon program after a launch-pad fire killed three astronauts, died Nov. 6 in Cocoa Beach, Florida
Tape recordings caught his words at that moment. 'May the good Lord ride all the way,' Mr. O'Malley said. Mr. Carpenter, in the blockhouse to handle communications between the ground and Mr. Glenn, followed with the famous benediction, 'Godspeed, John Glenn.'
An early riser, O'Malley frequently arrived at Cape Canaveral launch pads and other facilities before dawn. Often, he would get lost in the dark, virtually featureless sandy landscape of the Cape -- until his colleagues installed a streetlight at the road leading to pad 14, the site of the Glenn launch. A plaque at the base reads 'O'Malley's Guiding Light.'
