appendix b

SP-4106 Aiming At Targets

[257] APPENDIX B

Biographical Appendix

[as of 1996]

Richard Borda (1931- ) was assistant secretary of the Air Force for Reserve Affairs, 1970-1973.

Harold Brown (1927- ) was director of Defense Research and Engineering at the Pentagon, 1961-1965, before becoming secretary of the Air Force, 1965-1969. After spending eight years as the president of the California Institute of Technology, he returned to Washington to serve as the secretary of defense in the Carter administration, 1977-1981. He currently works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

John Chafee (1922- ) was the secretary of the Navy, 1969-1972. In 1976, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Rhode Island and has served there since.

Roger Chaffee (1935-1967) was a Navy lieutenant commander and astronaut who had never flown in space. Chaffee, along with his crewmates Gus Grissom and Ed White, were killed when their Apollo 204 capsule was engulfed in flames on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center.

Leighton (Lee) Davis was an Air Force lieutenant general who served as the National Range Division commander from 1960 to 1967. He received a Distinguished Service Medal for his role as the Department of Defense manager for the Mercury and Gemini programs.

Kurt Debus (1908-1983) was a German engineer who came to the United States in 1945 with a group of engineers and scientists headed by Wernher von Braun. After working at Fort Bliss, Texas, and the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, Debus moved to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where he supervised the launching of the first ballistic missile fired from there. Debus became director of the Launch Operations Center and then of the Kennedy Space Center, as it was renamed in December 1963. He retired from that position in 1974.

[258] Charles Stark (Doe) Draper (1901-1987) earned his Ph.D. in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1938 and became a full professor there the following year. In that same year, he founded the Instrumentation Laboratory. Its first major achievement was the Mark 14 gyroscopic gunsight for Navy antiaircraft guns. Draper and the lab applied gyroscopic principles to the development of inertial guidance systems for airplanes, missiles, submarines, ships, satellites, and space vehicles-notably those used in the Apollo Moon landings. Draper was a mentor to many future students in aerospace engineering.

Hugh Dryden (1898-1965) was a career civil servant and an aerodynamicist by discipline who had begun life as something of a child prodigy. He graduated at age 14 from high school and earned an A.B. in three years from Johns Hopkins (1916). Three years later (1919), he earned his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from the same institution, even though he had been employed full time by the National Bureau of Standards since June 1918. His career at the Bureau of Standards, which lasted until 1947, included becoming its assistant director and then associate director during his final two years there. Dryden served as director of the NACA, 1947-1958, after which he became deputy administrator of NASA under T. Keith Glennan and James E. Webb.

Maxime Faget (1921- ), an aeronautical engineer with a B.S. from Louisiana State University (1943), joined the staff at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in 1946 and soon became head of the Performance Aerodynamics Branch of the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. In 1958 he joined the Space Task Group in NASA, forerunner of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (later renamed the Johnson Space Center), became its assistant director for engineering and development in 1962, and later its director. He contributed many of the original design concepts for Project Mercury's crewed spacecraft and played a major role in designing virtually every U.S. crewed spacecraft since that time, including the Space Shuttle. He retired from NASA in 1981 and became an executive for Eagle Engineering, Inc. In 1982 he was one of the founders of Space Industries, Inc., and became its president and chief executive officer.

Robert Gilruth (1913- ) was a longtime NACA engineer who worked at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1937-1946, then as chief of the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division at Wallops Island, 1946-1952. He had been exploring the possibility of human spaceflight before the creation of NASA. He served as assistant director at Langley, 1952-1959, and as assistant director (crewed satellites) and head of Project Mercury, 1959-1961-technically assigned to the Goddard Space Flight Center but physically located at Langley. In early 1961, T. Keith Glennan established an independent Space Task Group (already the [259] group's name as an independent subdivision of Goddard) under Gilruth at Langley to supervise the Mercury program. This group moved to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston in 1962. Gilruth was then director of the Houston operation, 1962-1972.

John Glenn (1921- ) earned a B.S. in engineering from Muskingum College and became a colonel in the Marine Corps. A member of NASA's first class of astronauts, Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, which he did in 1962 on the Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7) mission. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1975, he is still a Democratic Senator from Ohio.

T. Keith Glennan (1905-1995) served as the first administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from August 1958 to January 1961. Glennan had worked in the sound motion picture industry in the 1930s and joined the Columbia University Division of War Research in 1942. In 1947 he became president of the Case Institute of Technology. From October 1950 to November 1952, he served as a member of the Atomic Energy Commission. Upon leaving NASA in 1961, Glennan returned to Case, where he continued to serve as president until 1966.

Harry Goett (1910- ) was an aeronautical engineer who began working at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in 1936 and then worked at the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, 1948-1959. In 1959 he became director of the Goddard Space Flight Center, a post he held until July 1965, when he became a special assistant to NASA Administrator James E. Webb. Later that year, he shifted over to the private sector, working at Philco's Western Development Laboratories in California and then at Ford Aerospace and Communications.

Virgil (Gus) Grissom (1927-1967) was chosen for the first group of astronauts in 1959. He was the pilot for the 1961 Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7) mission, a suborbital flight; the command pilot for Gemini III; and the backup command pilot for Gemini VI. He had been selected as commander of the first Apollo flight at the time of his death in the Apollo 204 fire in January 1967.

Grant Hansen (1921- ) was the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development, 1969-1973.

D. Brainerd Holmes (1921 - ) was involved in the management of high technology efforts in private industry and the federal government. He was on the staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1945-1953, and RCA, 1953-]961. He then became deputy associate administrator for manned space flight at NASA, 1961-1963. Holmes left NASA to work for the Raytheon Corporation.
[260] John Houbolt (1919- ) was an engineer who worked as an aircraft structures specialist at NASA's Langley Research Center. After President Kennedy announced his 1961 decision to put an American on the Moon, Houbolt was instrumental in the technical decision to adopt the lunar-orbit rendezvous approach for the Apollo program. Houbolt left NASA in 1963 for the private sector, but he returned to Langley in 1976 before retiring in 1985.

Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978) (D-MN) served as a U.S. senator from Minnesota, 1949-1964 and 1971-1978. As senator, he pressed for the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Science and Technology in early 1958, which was defeated by President Eisenhower's proposal to establish NASA. He was Vice President of the United States, 1965-1969, under Lyndon Johnson, but he lost the presidential election to Nixon in 1968.

John Johnson (1915- ) served as general counsel of the Air Force, 1952-1958. He accepted the same position at NASA in 1958. In 1963 he left NASA to join the Communications Satellite Corporation. He retired in 1980.

Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973) (D-TX) was a U.S. senator, 1949-1960, Vice President of the United States, 1960 1963, and President, 1963-1969. Best known for the social legislation he passed during his presidency and for his escalation of the war in Vietnam, he was also highly instrumental in revising and passing the legislation that created NASA and in supporting the U.S. space program as chair of the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences and of the preparedness subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He later chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council (as Vice President under President Kennedy).

David C. Jones (1921- ) joined the Air Force during World War II and advanced through the ranks, becoming the deputy commander of operations in Vietnam, the Air Force chief of staff, 1974-1978, and finally the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1978-1982.

John Kennedy (1916-1963) was President of the United States, 1961-1963. In 1960, as a senator from Massachusetts (1953-1960), he ran for President as the Democratic candidate, with Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy announced to the nation the goal of sending an American to the Moon before the end of the decade. The human spaceflight imperative was a direct outgrowth of it; Projects Mercury (at least in its latter stages), Gemini, and Apollo were each designed to execute it.

Robert Kerr (1896-1963) (D-OK) was governor of Oklahoma, 1943-1947, and then was elected to the Senate the following year. From 1961 to 1963, he chaired the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences.

[261] James Killian, Jr. (1904-1988), who was president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 1949-1959, took leave between November 1957 end duly 1959 to serve as the first presidential science advisor. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the President's Science Advisory Committee, which Killian chaired, following the Sputnik crisis. After leaving the White House staff in 1959, Killian continued his work at MIT, but in 1965 he began working with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to develop public television.

Melvin Laird (1922- ) was secretary of defense, 1969-1973, during the Nixon administration. He later served on the boards of directors of a number of major corporations.

George Low (1926-1984) was an Austrian aeronautical engineer who joined the NACA in 1949. He became chief of manned spaceflight at NASA Headquarters in 1958. In 1960 he chaired a special committee that formulated the original plans for the Apollo lunar landings. In 1964 he became deputy director of the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, the forerunner of the Johnson Space Center. He became deputy administrator of NASA in 1969 and served as acting administrator, 1970-1971. He retired from NASA in 1976 to become president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a position he held until his death. In 1990 NASA renamed its quality and excellence award after him.

John McLucas (1920- ) was the under secretary of the Air Force, 1969-1973, and then secretary, 1973-1975. From 1975 to 1977, he served as the administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Robert McNamara (1916- ) was secretary of defense during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, 1961-1968. Thereafter, he served as president of the World Bank, where he remained until retirement in 1981. As secretary of defense in 1961, McNamara was intimately involved in the Kennedy administration's process of approving Project Apollo.

Walter Mondale (1928- ) was Vice President of the United States under President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). He ran for President himself in 1984 but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan. Mondale served in the Senate as a Democrat from Minnesota, 1964-1977, and was considered a harsh critic of large technology programs such as the Space Shuttle. He currently serves as the Clinton administration's ambassador to Japan.

George Mueller (1918- ) was associate administrator for manned spaceflight at NASA Headquarters, 1963-1969, where he was responsible for overseeing the completion of Project Apollo and beginning the development of the Space Shuttle. He left NASA for private industry in 1969.
[262] David Packard (1912-1996) was a co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Company. He was deputy secretary of defense in the Nixon administration, 1969-1971.

Thomas Paine (1921-1992) was appointed deputy administrator of NASA in 1968, acting administrator later that year, and then NASA's third administrator in 1969. During his leadership, the first seven Apollo manned missions were flown. Paine resigned from NASA in September 1970 to return to the General Electric Company, where he remained until 1976. In 1985 the White House chose Paine as chair of a National Commission on Space to prepare a report on the future of space exploration. The Paine Commission report, Pioneering the Space Frontier, was released in May 1986. It espoused a "pioneering mission for 21st century America"-"to lead the exploration and development of the space frontier, advancing science, technology, and enterprise, and building institutions and systems that make accessible vast new resources and support human settlements beyond Earth orbit, from the highlands of the Moon to the plains of Mars." The report also contained a "Declaration for Space" that included a rationale for exploring and settling the solar system and outlined a long-range space program for the United States.

Samuel Phillips (1921-1990) was an electrical engineer who had a distinguished military flying record during World War II. He became involved in the development of the successful B-52 bomber in the early 1950s and headed the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile program in the latter part of the decade. In 1964 Phillips, by this time an Air Force general, moved to NASA to head the Apollo lunar landing program, which, of course, was unique in its technological accomplishment. He returned to the Air Force in the 1970s and commanded the Air Force Systems Command prior to his retirement in 1975.

William Proxmire (1915- ) (D-WI) served as a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, 1957-1989. He was well known for his congressional investigations of government waste and abuse of funding.

Stanley Resor (1917- ) was the secretary of the Army during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, 1965-1971.

John (Jack) Ryan was an Air Force general who became the Air Force chief of staff.

Spencer Schedler was assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management.

Julian Scheer (1926- ) was a newspaper reporter who served as NASA's assistant administrator for public affairs, 1962-1971.

[263] Willis Shapley (1917- ), son of famous Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley, joined the Bureau of the Budget in 1942 and held increasingly more responsible positions in military and space affairs at that agency for more than 20 years. In 1965 he moved to NASA as associate deputy administrator, with his duties including supervision of the public affairs, congressional affairs, DOD and interagency affairs, and international affairs offices. He retired in 1975 but rejoined NASA in 1987 to help it recover from the Challenger disaster. He served as associate deputy administrator (policy) until 1988, when he again retired but continued to serve as a consultant to the administrator.

Joseph Shea (1926- ) joined NASA Headquarters' Office of Manned Space Flight in 1962. The next year, he was named the Apollo program manager at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. In 1967 he returned to NASA Headquarters as deputy associate administrator for manned spaceflight. He joined the Raytheon Company in 1968 and served on the NASA Advisory Council for several years. Shea returned to NASA again as head of Space Station redesign efforts in the early 1990s, and he also served as chair of a task force that reviewed plans for the first servicing mission of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Alan Shepard (1923- ) was the first U.S. astronaut in space. Following cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight in April 1961, Shepard flew on a short suborbital flight in May 1961. He also flew to the Moon on Apollo 14 in 1971. He is currently the president of Seven Fourteen Enterprises in Houston.

Abe Silverstein (1908- ) worked as an engineer at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1929-1943, and moved to the Lewis Laboratory (later Research Center) to a succession of management positions, the last (1961-1970) as director of the center. When T. Keith Glennan arrived and NASA began in 1958, Silverstein was director of the Office of Space Flight Development. While at Headquarters, he helped create and direct the efforts leading to the spaceflights of Project Mercury and to establish the technical basis for the Apollo program. As director of Lewis, he oversaw a major expansion of the center and the development of the Centaur launch vehicle. He retired from NASA in 1970 to take a position with the Republic Steel Corporation.

Jack Stempler (l920- ) was the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, 1965-1970 and 1977-1981. In between (1970-1977), he served as the general counsel for the Air Force.
[264] Curtis Tarr (1924- ) was the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, 1969-1970. He then became the director of the Selective Service System, 1970-1972.

Albert Thomas (1898-1966) (D-TX) chaired the House Independent Offices Appropriations subcommittee that had jurisdiction over NASA. First elected to Congress in 1936, he ran this powerful subcommittee for almost 15 years. He used his political influence to have the $250 million Manned Spacecraft Center located in Houston, near his congressional district.

Floyd Thompson (1898-1976) joined the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in 1926 as part of a staff of only about 150. He became chief of the Flight Research Division in 1940 and assistant chief of research for Langley in 1943. In 1960 Thompson became director of Langley. He also served briefly as a special assistant to the NASA administrator in 1968 before retiring later that year.

Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) was the leader of the "rocket team" that had developed the German V-2 ballistic missile in World War II. At the conclusion of the war, von Braun and some of his chief assistants came to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, to work on rocket development and use the V-2 for high-altitude research. In 1950 von Braun's team moved to the Army's Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama. From 1960 to 1970, he was the director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, where he was instrumental in supervising the Saturn rocket program for the Apollo lunar missions.

James Webb (1906-1992) was NASA administrator between 1961 and 1968. Previously, he had been an aide to a congressman and a business executive with the Sperry Corporation and the Kerr-McGee Oil Company. He also had been director of the Bureau of the Budget, 1946-1950, and undersecretary of state, (1950-1952).

Edward Welsh (1909- ) had a long career in various private and public enterprises. He served as legislative assistant to Senator Stuart Symington (D-MO), 1953-1961, and was the executive secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council through the 1960s.

Edward White (1930-1967) was the first astronaut to "walk" in space, which he did in 1965 as part of the Gemini IV mission. A lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and son of an Air Force general, White joined NASA in 1962 as a member of its second class of astronauts. White was killed, along with crewmates Roger Chaffee and Gus Grissom, when their Apollo 204 capsule was engulfed in flames on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center.

Philip Whittaker was NASA's assistant administrator for industry affairs in the 1960s. President Nixon later appointed him assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations and logistics.

Jerome Wiesner (1915-1994) was science advisor to President John F. Kennedy. He had been a faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and had served on President Eisenhower's Science Advisory Committee. During the presidential campaign of 1960, Wiesner had advised Kennedy on science and technology issues and prepared a transition team report on the subject that questioned the value of human spaceflight. As Kennedy's science advisor, he tussled with NASA over the lunar landing commitment and the method of conducting it.

Source: Biographical reference files, NASA Headquarters History Office, Washington, D.C.