National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA History Division
Biographies of Aerospace Officials
and Policymakers, E-J
Frederick M. Eaton (1905-1984) was a lawyer and served in 1960 as chairman of the American delegation to the Disarmament Commission in Geneva.
John Allen Eddy (1931 - ) has served as the senior scientist and director of the Office of Interdisciplinary Earth Studies, National Center of Atmospheric Research, since 1986. He received his B.S. degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1953, and his Ph.D. (astrogeophysics) from the University of Colorado in 1962. Other positions held include: physicist, senior scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research; professor adjunct, University of Colorado; and research associate, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Professional memberships include: the American Astronomical Society; fellow, the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the American Geophysical Union; Sigma Xi; and the International Astronomical Union. See “Eddy, John Allen” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
Burton I. Edelson (1926-2002) was NASA’s associate administrator for Space Science and Applications between 1982 and 1988. He earned his B.S. from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1947, and served for 20 years in the service. He then returned to school and received a Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego in 1969. Thereafter he worked with the Communications Satellite Corporation for 14 years before coming to NASA. See "Edelson, Burt I.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Krafft A. Ehricke (1917-1984) was an aeronautical engineer and physicist, and one of the members of the GermanV-2 rocket team that surrendered to the United States Army in the closing days of World War II brought to the United States as a nucleus of America’s postwar rocket development program. In 1947 he worked for the Army’s missile program under Dr. Wernher von Braun. From 1956 to 1965, he worked for the Convair division of the General Dynamics Corporation, where he had a major design and management role in the development of the Atlas and Centaur rockets. He later served as the chief scientific adviser to the space division of Rockwell International Corporation, the builder of the Apollo manned spacecraft and the space shuttle. See “Ehricke, Krafft A.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Raymond Einhorn was a former General Accounting Office auditor who joined NASA in 1960 as its director of audits. He served in this position throughout the 1960s. See Assorted NASA Officials biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Eisele, Donn F. (1930-1987) served as the command module pilot during the Apollo 7 mission in 1968. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1952 and a Master of Science degree in Astronautics from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1960. Prior to his selection as an Apollo Astronaut, Eisele served as a project engineer and experimental test pilot at the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. After he retired from both the Air Force and the space program in 1972 he became the Director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand. Eisele finished his career working in private industry back in the United States. (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/eisele-df.html) accessed 3 October 2006.
Dwight D. .Eisenhower (1890-1969) was the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. A career U.S. Army officer, during World War II he was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. As president he was deeply interested in the use of space technology for national security purposes and directed that ballistic missiles and reconnaissance satellites be developed on a crash basis. On Eisenhower's space efforts see, Rip Bulkeley, The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); R. Cargill Hall, "The Eisenhower Administration and the Cold War: Framing American Astronautics to Serve National Security," Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives 27 (Spring 1995): 59-72; Robert A. Divine, The Sputnik Challenge: Eisenhower's Response to the Soviet Satellite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Allen Joseph Ellender (1890-1972) (D-LA) was first elected to the Senate in 1936 and served until 1972.
Eugene M. Emme (1919-1985) became the NASA chief historian in 1959 and served until his retirement in 1979. Previously he had been a historian with the Air University of the U.S. Air Force. (Sylvia D. Fries, "Eugene M. Emme [1919-1985]," _Technology and Culture_, 27 [July 1986]: 665-67).
John D. Erlichman was a senior assistant to the president during the Nixon administration. See John Erlichman, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982).
James Exon (1921- ) served as the governor of Nebraska from 1971-1979. Since 1979 he has served as a Democratic Senator from Nebraska. Who's Who in America 1996 (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1996).
Maxime A. Faget (1921-2004) was an aeronautical engineer with a B.S. from LSU (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. There, he conducted research on the heat shield of the Mercury spacecraft. In 1958 he joined the space task group in NASA, forerunner of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center that became the Johnson Space Center, and he 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 piloted 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. See "Maxime A. Faget," biographical file 000602, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Philip J. Farley (1916- ) earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1941 and was on the faculty at Corpus Christi Junior College from 1941 to 1942 before entering government work for the Atomic Energy Commission, 1947-1954, and for the State Department, 1954-1969. From 1957 until 1961 he was a special assistant to the secretary of state for disarmament and atomic energy, and from 1961 to 1962 his responsibilities shifted to atomic energy and outer space. After several years of assignment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he returned to Washington and became deputy secretary of state for political-military affairs, 1967-1969. Then from 1969 to 1973 he became deputy director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. See "Farley, P.J.," Biographical File, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
George J. Feldman (1904- ) was a lawyer and financier. He served as consultant for the House Select Committee on Science and Astronautics in 1960. He then became 1 of 14 director of Communications Satellite Corp. from 1962-1965. (COMSAT, as it is called, is a mixed private-government entity established by legislation in 1962; it had a mandate to cooperate with other countries to set up an international communications satellite system, and it helped set up INTELSAT [International Telecommunications Satellite Organization] in 1964 for that purpose.)
Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov (1926- ) was Department Chief and Deputy General Designer at OKB-1 (Korolev) from 1957-1990 and led work on Vostok and other piloted spacecraft. He was also a cosmonaut and flew on the historic Voskhod mission in 1964. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Michael Ference Jr. (1911-1996) After earning a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 1936, Dr. Ference worked as a professor at the university from 1937 to 1946. Upon leaving the university, he worked for Signal-Corps Engineering Laboratories until 1953, serving as Chief Scientist from 1948-1951 and Technical Director from 1951to 1953. He then became the Chief Scientist for Ford Motor Company’s Scientific Lab, and was promoted to Executive Director in 1959. He is a member of the American Physics Society and Chairman of the Science-Engineering Activity Committee. His memberships also include the Geophysical Research Board, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Advisory Group on Weather Modification. He is the author of Analytical and Experimental Physics (1943). (Who’s Who in Engineering: 1964, Edward N. Dodge. Lewis Historical Publishing Co. Inc, New York City. 1964.)
William Finan was a staff member with the Bureau of the Budget during the Eisenhower administration. He was a member of the Purcell Panel that assessed space flight capabilities for the U.S. government in 1957-1958.
Harold B. Finger (1924- ) joined the NACA in 1944 as an aeronautical research scientist at the Lewis facility in Cleveland, where he worked with compressors until 1957 when, having received training in nuclear engineering, he became head of the nuclear radiation shielding group and the nuclear rocket design analysis group. In 1958 he moved to NASA Headquarters to assume duties as chief of the nuclear engine program. By 1962 he had become director of nuclear systems. From 1967 to 1969 he was NASA's associate administrator for organization and management before becoming assistant secretary for research and technology in the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1969-1972. ("Harold B. Finger," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Daniel J. Fink was chair of the NASA Advisory Council's Task Force that produced the 1983 "Study of the Mission of NASA."
James Brown Fisk (1910-1981) received his Ph.D. in physical science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1935 and served in a variety of educational and industry positions. He was heavily involved in work at Bell Telephone Labs, ultimately becoming its president. See "Fisk, J.B.," Biographical File, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Lennard A. Fisk was the chief scientist of NASA prior to his retirement in 1993. Before his appointment as chief scientist he served as the associate administrator for Space Science and Applications, and was responsible for planning and directing NASA programs concerned with space science and applications, including the institutional management of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. From 1971 to 1977 he was an astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Prior to NASA he was the National Academy of Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Goddard from September 1969 to June 1971. He had also served as vice president for Research and Financial Affairs at the University of New Hampshire. See “Fisk, Lennard A.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Peter M. Flanigan (1923- ) was an assistant to the President on the White House staff, 1969-1974. Previously he had been involved in investment banking with Dillon, Read, and Co. He returned to business when he left government service. His position in the White House involved him in efforts to gain approval to build the Space Shuttle in the 1969-1972 period. See ìMiscellaneous Other Agenciesî Biographical File, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Alexander H. Flax (1921- ) was an aeronautical engineer--Ph.D. in physics, who worked in several important positions in universities and industry. He worked for Curtiss-Wright, 1940-1944; Piasecki Helicopter Corp, 1944-1946; and at Cornell University, 1946-55. He served in scientific positions with the U.S. Air Force, 1955-1969; as assistant secretary of the Air Force for research and development, 1963-1969. Thereafter he became vice president for research for the Institute for Defense Analysis.
James C. Fletcher (1919-1991) was the administrator (1971-1977) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who gained the approval of the Nixon Administration on January 5, 1972, to develop the Space Shuttle as the follow-on human space flight effort of the agency. He also served as NASA administrator a second time (1986-1989) following the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986. Fletcher received an undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia University and a doctorate in physics from the California Institute of Technology. After holding research and teaching positions at Harvard and Princeton universities, he joined Hughes Aircraft in 1948 and later worked at the Guided Missile Division of the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation. In 1958 Fletcher co-founded the Space Electronics Corporation in Glendale, California. He was later named systems vice president of the Aerojet General Corporation in Sacramento, California. In 1964 he became president of the University of Utah, a position he held until he was named NASA administrator in 1971. Dr. Fletcher died at his home in suburban Washington on December 22, 1991. See “Fletcher, James C.” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
John F. Floberg (1915- ) was one of six members of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1957 to 1960. A lawyer, he also served as assistant secretary of the Navy from 1949-1953. In 1960 he became general counsel for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., later rising to be vice president and then director and member of its executive committee.
Charles T. Force served as NASA Associate Administrator for Space Communications and was instrumental in setting up the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). NASA issued a news release when he left NASA in 1996 and also compiled an obituary upon his death in 2007. (See Force, Charles T. biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) was elected to the House of Representatives (R-MI) in 1948 and served there until he became vice president in 1973 following the resignation of Spiro Agnew. He was President of the United States from 1974 to 1978, following Richard M. Nixon's resignation. (“Ford, Gerald” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
David J. Forrest is a Research Associate Professor in the Institute of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS), and the Space Science Center, at the University of New Hampshire. He received his Ph.D. in physics from UNH in 1969. His thesis work involved the design, fabrication, and flight of three different balloon experiments. Since then he has been involved in at least six balloon experiments, some as the project scientist and some as a senior mentor for young scientists. In 1971 he became the instrument scientist for the Gamma Ray Experiment on NASA's OSO-7 mission. In mid-1970 he designed, and was the experiment scientist and the UNH technical manager for, the Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS) for NASA's Solar Maximum Mission. The GRS experiment was delivered on time and within budget, and was the first of six instruments delivered and integrated onto the SMM spacecraft. The GRS operated without a single failure for nearly 10 years, from launch in 1980 until the SMM reentry in late 1989. See “David J. Forrest” at www.catsat.sr.unh.edu/personnel/dforrest.htm on the Net.
John S. Foster, Jr. (1922- ) is a physicist who served as director of Defense Research and Engineering from 1965-1973, when he moved to the private sector. He has served on a number of scientific and technical government advisory boards. In 1995, he was the chair of a NASA federal laboratory review team. In 1992, he served on the vice president's space policy advisory board that reviewed U.S. space policy after the cold war. "Foster, John S., Jr.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
William C. Foster, later the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, was President Eisenhower's representative to the US/USSR summit at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1955. One of his responsibilities was to obtain freedom of space for overflight by spacecraft.
William Alfred Fowler (1911-1995) won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 for his work with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in the development of theories of element generation. He was awarded the Apollo Achievement Award in 1969 and the National Medal of Science, the Nation's highest honor for scientific achievement, in 1974. He served on many science advisory boards, including NASA’s Space Program Advisory Council (1971-73), and was a member of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences from 1970 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1980. Finally, he was the Chairman of the Office of Physical Scientists from 1981 to 1984. Fowler earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1936 and a bachelor’s degree of Engineering at Ohio State University. Upon earning his doctorate, he began research at the California Institute of Technology as an assistant professor of physics and in 1982 he was named Professor Emeritus. (Who’s Who in the World 10th Edition, 1991-1992. Wilmette, IL: Marquis Who’s Who, 1990.)
Lawrence William Fredrick (1927 - ) is an eminent part of the faculty at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. His tenure with the university spans four decades. From 1965 to 1995 he taught astronomy. In 1995 he became a research professor. He was a member of the American Astronomical Society from 1969 through 1980. A published writer with expertise in the field of astronomy, he received his B.A. (1952) and M.A. (1954) from Swarthmore College, and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (1959). See “Fredrick, Lawrence William” in Who’s Who in America, 1956, 10th Ed. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1955.
Herbert Friedman (1916-2000) earned his Ph.D. in physics from the Johns Hopkins University in 1940. He conducted his first experiments in rocket astronomy with a V-2 rocket in 1949. He performed hundreds of experiments including the traced solar cycle variations of x-rays and ultraviolet radiations from the Sun, and the measured ultraviolet fluxes of early-type stars. Dr. Friedman received the National Medal of Science, the Nation’s highest honor for scientific achievement, as well as numerous other awards and merits. His scientific and technical contributions include 50 patents and about 300 published papers. He served on many science advisory committees, including the President’s Science Advisory Committee, the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. See “Friedman, Herbert” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Edward Allan Frieman (1926 - ) earned a B.S. from Columbia University in 1946, an M.S. in physics from Columbia University in 1948, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1952. An educator by profession, he served as vice-chairman of the White House Science Council from 1981 to 1989. He also served on the Defense Science Board from 1984 to1990. In 1992, he became vice-president of the Space Policy Advisory Board. He also served as chairman of the NASA Earth Observing Systems Engineering Review from 1991 to 1992. See Who's Who in America 2000 New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1999.
Robert A. Frosch (1928- )
Arnold W. Frutkin (1918- ) was deputy director of the U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year in the National Academy of Sciences when NASA hired him in 1959 as director of international programs, a title that changed in 1963 to assistant administrator for international affairs. In 1978 he became associate administrator for external relations, a post he relinquished in 1979 when he retired from federal service. During his career, he had been NASA's senior negotiator for almost all of the important international space agreements. ("Arnold W. Frutkin," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Arnold W. Frutkin (1918- ) was deputy director of the U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year in the National Academy of Sciences when NASA hired him in 1959 as director of international programs, a title that changed in 1963 to assistant administrator for international affairs. In 1978 he became associate administrator for external relations, a post he relinquished in 1979 when he retired from federal service. During his career, he had been NASA's senior negotiator for almost all of the important international space agreements. "Frutkin, Arnold" Biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Eugene G. Fubini (1913- ) was a noted physicist. A native of Italy, he came to the United States in 1938 to work for CBS in charge of microwave and international broadcasting. He worked for the U.S. military in World War II, and in a succession of technical and scientific position with the Department of Defense in the post-war era. Since 1969 he has served as a consultant with the Texas Instruments Corp and IBM.
J. William Fulbright (1905- ) (D-AR) became president of the University of Arkansas in 1939, then served as congressman from 1943 to 1944 and senator from 1945 to 1974. In 1946 he sponsored the so-called Fulbright act providing for exchanges of scholars with other countries. From 1959 he served as chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is best known for his opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam.
Craig Fuller was President Ronald Reagan's Cabinet Secretary in the early 1980s and arranged for NASA's space station proposal to be discussed at a meeting of the Cabinet Council for Commerce and Trade.
James G. Fulton (1903-1971) (R-PA) was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1944 and served through 1971.
Clifford C. Furnas (1900-1969) earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1926 and served as a chemist with the U.S. Bureau of Mines from 1926-1931; he then taught chemical engineering at Yale from 1931-1942. He became director of research at Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division, 1943-1946 and served as vice president for Cornell Aeronautical Lab. from 1946-1954. Becoming chancellor at the University of Buffalo from 1954 to 1962, he then became president of the State University of N.Y. at Buffalo.
Charles A. Gabriel served as United States Air Force Chief of Staff between 1983 and 1986. As such he was the highest-ranking uniformed official in the service. Miscellaneous DoD biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Yuriy Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934-1968) was the first human in space. Gagarin later became Deputy Director of the Cosmonaut Training Center from 1963-1968 before dying in a plane crash. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) used the newly invented telescope to view the bodies of the universe and to develop to its most advanced state in the pre-nineteenth century the "Heliocentric System" of the Solar System. Galileo made four important observations that convinced him that Copernican cosmology was correct, as described by writers Lloyd Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver: "(1) the moon's surface is cratered and highly irregular, thus negating the theory that celestial bodies are 'perfect'; (2) the phases of Venus and those of the moon are similar, proving that Venus revolves around the sun and not around the earth; (3) four moons (satellites) revolve around Jupiter, illustrating in miniature the Copernican model of the solar system; and (4) the Milky Way consists of numerous points of light, which Galileo correctly interpreted as very distant stars" (p. 42). Galileo ran afoul of ecclesiastical authorities because of his observations but they quickly became the standard explanation for understanding the workings of the universe. (Lloyd Motz and Jefferson Hane Weaver, The Story of Physics (New York: Avon Books, 1992).)
Eilene Galloway (1906- ) served on the staff of the Congressional Research Service (formerly the Legislative Reference Service) Library of Congress, as National Defense Analyst 1951-1966, and from 1966-1975 as Senior Specialist in International Relations (National Security). In this connection, she was appointed Special Consultant to the Senate Special Commiittee on Space and Astronautics in 1958, the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences 1958-1977, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation 1977-1982. She participated in the legislative process of the NASA Act of 1958.
Dave Garroway (1913-1982) was a television and radio personality who hosted the "Today Show" for NBC between 1952 and 1961 (obituary in New York Times, July 22, 1982, p. D22).
Thomas S. Gates, Jr. (1906-1983) was secretary of the Navy between 1957 and 1959, deputy secretary of defense in 1959, then secretary of defense from 1959-1961. Before that time, Gates had been undersecretary of the Navy, 1953-1957; director of the Scott Paper Co.; and on active duty with the Navy in World War II.
Riccardo Giacconi (1932 - ) became head of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute in 1981 and served through launch in 1990 on STS-31. Prior to Hubble he served as associate director of the High Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard University Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. A pioneer in the field of x-ray astronomy, he led the team that launched UHURU, the first x-ray satellite, in 1970. See “Giacconi, Riccardo” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
John H. Gibbons (1929 - ) headed the Office of Technology Assessment under Congress for fourteen years before becoming President Clinton’s science advisor and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1993. He received a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University in 1954. See “Gibbons, John,” biographical file 5237, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Peter A. Gilman received his B.A. from Harvard College (1962), and his S.M. (1964) and Ph.D. (meteorology, 1966) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His professional experiences include: assistant professor of astrogeophysics and lecturer at the University of Colorado; adjunct professor of astrophysics, planetary, and atmospheric science; member, Solar and Space Physics Committee, Space Science Board, National Academy of Sciences; chairman, Advanced Study Program, head, Solar Variability Section, and director, High Altitude Observatory; and senior scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research. Professional memberships include: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Meteorological Society, the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the International Astronomical Union. See “Gilman, Peter A.” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
Roswell L. Gilpatric (1906- ) is a retired attorney who served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1961-1964. Who's Who in America, 1996 (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1995).
Robert R. Gilruth (1913-2000) was a longtime NACA engineer working at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory from 1937-1946, then as chief of the pilotless aircraft research division at Wallops Island from 1946-1952, who had been exploring the possibility of human spaceflight before the creation of NASA. He served as assistant director at Langley from 1952-1959 and as assistant director (piloted satellites) and head of Project Mercury from 1959-1961, technically assigned to the Goddard Spaceflight Center but physically located at Langley. In early 1961 Glennan established an independent Space Task Group (already the group's name as an independent subdivision of the Goddard center) under Gilruth at Langley to supervise the Mercury program. This group moved to the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, in 1962. Gilruth was then director of the Houston operation from 1962-1972. See, Henry C. Dethloff, "Suddenly Tomorrow Came . . .": A History of the Johnson Space Center (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4307, 1993); James R. Hansen, Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4305, 1987), pp. 386-88.
Harold Glaser (1924 - ) is an authority of theoretical physics. Early in his career he worked as a Senior Physicist in the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University (from 1952 through 1954). From 1954 through 1957 he was head of the Theoretical Analysis Section of the System Analysis Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory. He joined NASA in 1966 as the deputy chief of solar physics in the Office of Space Science and Applications. From 1975 through 1980 he was the director of NASA’s terrestrial programs. See “Glaser, Harold” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
James P. Gleason had been appointed to head the NASA office of congressional relations in late 1958 or early 1959 and served through March 1961. Thereafter, he practiced law in Washington, served as county executive for Montgomery County, Maryland, and as an administrative judge with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ("James P. Gleason," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
S. Everett Gleason (1905- ) was a longtime government official in the Department of State and for a time its official historian.
John H. Glenn, Jr. (1921- ) was chosen with the first group of astronauts in 1959. He was the pilot for the 20 February 1962 Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7) mission, the first American orbital flight. He made three orbits on this mission. He left the NASA astronaut corps in 1964 and later entered politics as a senator from Ohio. See Lloyd S. Swenson, Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4201, 1966) and (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/glenn-j.html) accessed 23 October 2006.
T. Keith Glennan (1905-1995) was the first Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, formally established on October 1, 1958, under the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. Within a short time after NASA's formal organization, Glennan incorporated several organizations involved in space exploration projects from other federal agencies into NASA to ensure that a viable scientific program of space exploration could be reasonably conducted over the long term. A resident of Reston, Virginia, for twenty years after his retirement, he moved to Mitchellville, Maryland, in the late 1980s. He died in Mitchellville on April 11, 1995. (“Glennan, T. Keith” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
Valentin Petrovich Glushko (1908-1989) was Chief Designer / General Designer from 1946-1989 at OKB-456 and designed rocket engines for missiles and launchers. He was one of the most powerful chief designers in Soviet space program. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Frank E. Goddard, Jr. (1915- ) was a long-time employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, having held positions as chief of the high-speed wind tunnel section, chief of the aerodynamics division, and chief of the aerodynamic and propellants department, before assuming duties from 1959 to 1961 as assistant director for NASA relations, with offices in NASA Headquarters. He then became director of planning back at JPL and, in 1962, assistant laboratory director for research and advanced development. ("Frank E. Goddard," biographical files, NASA miscellaneous, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) was one of the three most prominent pioneers of rocketry and spaceflight theory. He earned his Ph.D. in physics at Clark University in 1911 and went on to become head of the Clark physics department and director of its physical laboratories. He began to work seriously on rocket development in 1909 and is credited with launching the world's first liquid-propellant rocket in 1926. He continued his rocket development work with the assistance of a few technical assistants throughout the remainder of his life. Although he developed and patented many of the technologies later used on large rockets and missiles--including film cooling, gyroscopically-controlledvanes, and a variable-thrust rocket motor--only the last of these contributed directly to the furtherance of rocketry in the United States. Goddard kept most of the technical details of his inventions a secret and thus missed the chance to have the kind of influence his real abilities promised. At the same time, he was not good at integrating his inventions into a workable system, so his own rockets failed to reach the high altitudes he sought. See Milton Lehman, Robert H. Goddard: A Pioneer of Space Research (New York: Da Capo, 1988) and J.D. Hunley, "The Enigma of Robert H. Goddard," Technology and Culture 36 (April 1995--forthcoming).
Harry J. Goett (1910-2000) earned a degree in physics from Holy Cross College in 1931 and another in aeronautical engineering from NYU in 1933. After holding a number of engineering posts with private firms, he became a project engineer at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in 1936. He later moved to Ames Aeronautical Laboratory and was chief of the Full-scale and Flight Research Division from 1948 to 1959. He was director of the Goddard Space Flight Center from 1959 to 1965, then became a special assistant to NASA Administrator James E. Webb. Later he was director for plans and programs at Philco's Western Development Labs in California. A position with Ford Aerospace and Communications ended with his retirement. See “Goett, Harry J.” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
M.J.E. Golay (1902-1989) was an accomplished physicist and inventor. The author of over 50 scientific and technological publications, he was the owner of at least 15 U.S. patents. Dr. Golay received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1931 and became the Developing Engineer and later the Chef Scientist of the Computer Division of Signal Corporations Laboratories. His inventions include the Golay infrared detector, Golay delay line, Golay coils, and Golay chromatographic columns. (Who’s Who in Engineering: 1964, Edward N. Dodge. Lewis Historical Publishing Co. Inc, New York City, 1964.)
Leo Goldberg (1913-1987) was the director of the Kitt Peak National Observatory from 1971 to 1977. He served as a professor of astronomy and as director of the Observatory at the University of Michigan and Harvard University from 1948 to 1971. A former president of the International Astronomical Union and the American Astronomical Society, he received three degrees, including his Ph.D., from Harvard University. See “Goldberg, Leo,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Daniel S. Goldin (1940- ) initiated a revolution to transform America's aeronautics and space program. To date, he is NASA’s longest serving Administrator. Before coming to NASA, Goldin was vice president and general manager of the TRW Space and Technology Group in Redondo Beach, California. During his 25-year career at TRW, Goldin led projects for America's defense and conceptualized and managed production of advanced communication spacecraft, space technologies, and scientific instruments. He began his career at NASA's Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, in 1962, and worked on electric propulsion systems for human interplanetary travel. See “Goldin, Daniel S.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Barry M. Goldwater (1909-1998) (R-AZ) was a U.S. senator from 1953-1965. In 1964 he ran unsuccessfully for president of the U.S. against Lyndon Johnson. He was an outspoken conservative and became the leader and later elder statesman for the right wing of the Republican party.
Nicholas E. Golovin (1912-1969) served on thestaff of he White House Office of Science and Technology from 1962 to 1968, during which time he played an antagonistic role towards NASA and the decision to use the lunar orbit rendezvous mode to achieve a piloted lunar landing. Born in Odessa, Russia, but educated in this country (Ph.D. in physics, George Washington University, 1955) he worked in various capacities for the government during and after World War II, including for the Naval Research Laboratory, 1946-1948. He held several administrative positions with the National Bureau of Standards from 1949 to 1958. In 1958 he was chief scientist for the White Sands Missile Range and then worked for the Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1959 as director of technical operations. He became a deputy associate administrator of NASA in 1960. He joined private industry before becoming, in 1961, the director of the NASA-DOD large launch vehicle planning group. He joined the Office of Science and Technology at the White House in 1962 as a technical advisor for aviation and space and remained there until 1968 when he took a leave of absence as a research associate at Harvard and as a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Obituaries, Washington Star, 30 Apr. 1969, p. B-6, and Washington Post, 30 Apr. 1969, p. B14.
Richard Mead Goody (1921 - ) earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1949. Dr. Mead worked as a professor of applied sciences at Harvard University from 1958 to 1991. He also served as director of the Blue Hill Observatory from 1958 to 1970. See Who's Who in America 2000 New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1999.
Andrew Jackson Goodpaster (1915-2005) was a career Army officer who served as defense liaison officer and secretary of the White House staff from 1954 to 1961, being promoted to brigadier general during that period. He later was deputy commander, U.S. forces in Vietnam, 1968-1969, and commander-in-chief, U.S. Forces in Europe, 1969-1974. He retired in 1974 as a four-star general but returned to active duty in 1977 and served as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, a post he held until his second retirement in 1981.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev (1931- ) became leader of the Soviet Union in 1985 and restructured the nation, presiding over the demise of the communist state and the end of the Cold War in 1989. In the process he opened negotiations with the United States for significant international cooperation in space exploration. See Thomas G. Butson, Gorbachev: A Biography (New York: Stein and Day, 1985); "Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich," biographical files, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Albert Gore (1948 - ) was the 45th Vice President of the United States. He was elected as President Clinton’s Vice President in 1992 after serving in the House of Representatives (D-TN) from 1977 to 1985 and the Senate from 1985 to 1993. He graduated with a degree in government, with honors, from Harvard University in 1969 and attended Vanderbilt Law School after serving in the Vietnam War. As Vice-President, he worked with Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin on the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission to establish an agreement for Russian participation in the International Space Station. In 2000, he received the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. See “Gore, Albert” biographical file and “Gore, Albert” space statements file NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Melvin N. Gough (1906- ) earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins in 1926 and joined the wind tunnel staff of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory. Taking a leave of absence, he learned to fly with the Navy at Pensacola and became an NACA test pilot in 1929. He logged more than 6,000 hours of flying time and flew more than 300 different airplanes under test conditions. In 1943 he became director of flight research activities at Langley. He was assigned in 1958 as director of NASA activities at the Atlantic Missile Range, Cape Canaveral, Florida. In 1960 he became director of the bureau of safety at the Civil Aeronautics Board. Two years later, he joined the FAA as director of the new aircraft development service. He retired in 1963. ("Melvin N. Gough," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Theodore Granik was a lawyer and the founder of "American Forum of the Air," a weekly radioprogram for discussion of national problems, inaugurated in 1928 and later broadcast on televisionas well.
Edward Z. Gray (1915 - ) worked for Boeing Co. from 1943-1963 as a design engineer for the Boeing jet aircraft series as well as the DynaSoar and Minuteman programs. He held a number of positions in systems engineering management, the last one being as development program manager of advanced space systems. He served on numerous committees for the government and aerospace industry, including the NASA research advisory committee on structural loads in 1958-1959, of which he was chairman. In 1963 NASA appointed him to the directorship of its advanced piloted missions programs. He worked in that position through 1967, transferred to a position as assistant to the president of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. from 1967-1973, and then returned to NASA as assistant administrator for industry affairs and technology utilization. By 1978 he had assumed a position as director of government/industry affairs. In 1979 he joined Bendix Corp.'s aerospace-electronics group as director of systems development. See "Edward Z. Gray," biographical file 000871, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Gordon Gray (1909-1982) was a former publishing company executive and past president of the University of North Carolina who had served in various positions in the DOD and presidential administrations, including a period as secretary of the Army from 1949-1950. He served as special assistant to the president for national security affairs from 1958 to 1961. (William Gardner Bell, _Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army: Portraits & Biographical Sketches_ [Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1982], p. 134; _New York Times_, 28 November 1982, p. 44.)
Charles F. Green received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Kansas, and in 1915 joined the University of Illinois as a graduate assistant in mathematics. World War I interrupted his work and he enlisted in the Air Corps, serving overseas as a test pilot. Upon his return, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and remained on the staff until joining General Electric in Schenectady, New York, in 1929. He was among the group of experts sent to Europe early in 1945 to investigate engineering achievements of the Axis powers. When he returned he brought with him information on the Germans’ progress in guided missiles and jet aircraft, which he obtained by visiting their military, industrial, and research centers. See “Green, Charles F.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Milton Greenberg (1918 - ) served as the deputy director of the United States Air Force Geophysics Research Directorate from 1950 through 1954. In 1954 he became the director and served until 1958. In 1957 he participated in the Rocket and Satellite Research Panel. And from 1958 through 1986 he was president and chairman of GCA Corporation. See “Greenberg, Milton” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
Crawford H. Greenewalt (1902- ) had been president of E.I. duPont de Nemours & Co. since 1948 and had been with the company in a series of positions since 1922. The Greenewalt committee, appointed by Glennan to advise him on the goals of the NASA space program and consisting of ten members including Greenewalt, convened in late 1959 and continued into 1960 to explore and identify the national objectives to be served by a program of non- military space activities and in particular to examine the significance of competition with the Soviet Union in that arena. The committee deemphasized the issue of preeminence in space. ("Greenewalt Committee" and "Ad Hoc Advisory Committee" files, Glennan subseries, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Jesse Leonard Greenstein (1909 - ) received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is an astrophysicist and has served as a Lee A. Dubridge Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics since 1980. Other professional experiences include: staff member, Hale Observatory; professional astrophysicist; Lee A. Dubridge professor; fellow, National Research Council, Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago; research associate, McDonald Observatory, Chicago and Texas. Professional memberships include: the National Academy of Sciences, the American Astronomical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society, and the Royal Belgian Academy of Science. In 1972, he was chairman of the review board panel of the National Academy of Sciences report on “Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1970s.” See “Greenstein, Jesse Leonard” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom (1927-1967) was chosen with the first group of astronauts in 1959. He was the pilot for the 1961 Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7) mission, a suborbital flight; command pilot for Gemini 3; backup command pilot for Gemini 6; and had been selected as commander of the first Apollo flight carrying three crew members at the time of his death in the Apollo 1 fire in January 1967. See Betty Grissom and Henry Still, Starfall (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974); The Astronauts Themselves, We Seven (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962); (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/grissom-vi.html) accessed 23 October 2006.
H. R. Gross (1899-1987) (R-IA) was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948 and served through the mid-1970s.
Robert Ellsworth Gross (1897-1961) had worked for Lee Higginson Corp. (1919-1927), Stearman Aircraft Co. (1927-1928), and the Viking Flying Boat Co. (as president, 1928-1930). In 1932 he became president and chairman of the board of Lockheed Aircraft Corp., a position he held until at least 1960.
Aristid V. Grosse (1905- ) was born in Riga, Russia, and trained in engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He came to the United States in 1930 and was on the chemistry faculty at the University of Chicago, 1931-1940. He then went to Columbia University briefly before working in the Manhattan Project during the war years. In 1948 he became a faculty member at Temple University, presiding over the Research Institute (now Franklin Institute) through 1969. "Grosse, Aristid," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Boris Ivanovich Gubanov (1930-1999) was First Deputy Chief Designer / General Designer from 1972-1982 at OKB-586 (Yangel) and from 1982-1993 at Energiya (Korolev). He led the development of the Energiya booster. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Richard W. Gutman (1921- ) is a retired auditor and accountant who worked at the General Accounting Office on defense and international programs. From 1968-1972, he was deputy director of the Defense Division and when he retired from GAO in 1981, he was the director for the Defense Programs Planning and Analysis Staff. The GAO Review, Fall 1968, Summer 1978, Spring 1982 and (GAO) Office of Personnel Management: Professional Staff Register, entry for Gutman dated September 30, 1970. This information was obtained from the GAO Law Library, Washington, DC.
Fritz Haber (1868-1934) was a German research chemist who received the Nobel Prize for developing nitrates from ammonia that was put to numerous agricultural and industrial uses.
Fred Theodore Haddock, Jr. (1919 - ) is an emeritus professor at the University of Michigan. He received his B.S. (1941) and M.S. (1950) degrees from the University of Maryland, and his honorary D.Sc. degree from Southwestern, at Memphis, and Ripon College. He is an expert in radio astronomy. He started his career in 1941 with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory as a physicist and electronic scientist. He has been associated with NASA since the early 1960s, as a member of the Advisory Committee of Planetary and Interplanetary Science, Office of Space Science; the Ad Hoc Working Group on Apollo Science Experiment and Training, 1962 to 1963; the NASA Headquarters Astronomy Subcommittee, 1967 to 1969; consultant to the Office of Space Science and Applications since 1970; the NASA Astronomy Missions Board, the Radio Astronomy Panel, 1968 to 1971, the Ad Hoc Committee on National Astronomy Space Observance, 1970; the NASA Outer Planets Grand Tour Mission, and the Radio Astronomy Team since 1971. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, vice president 1961 to 1963; a fellow with the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; a fellow with the Royal Astronomical Society; and Sigma Xi. See “Haddock, Frederick Theodore, Jr.,” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
George H. Hage (1925- ) was associated with Project Apollo in the 1960s. After completing his B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Washington, in 1947 he went to work at the Boeing Company. He was involved in the development of the Bomarc and Minuteman missile systems, and in 1962 went to the Minuteman assembly and test complex in Florida in 1962. From there he took charge of Boeing's reconnaissance efforts, and in 1968 he came to NASA headquarters as Deputy Director of the Apollo program. Soon afterward Hage returned to Boeing, and in 1973 was appointed president of the Aerojet Solid Propulsion Company. See "Hage, George H.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
John P. Hagen (1908-1990) was a solar radio astronomer who earned an M.A. from Wesleyan in 1931 and began working for the Naval Research Laboratory in 1935. There he worked on improving radar techniques and helped develop an automatic ground speed indicator for aircraft. After World War II he headed NRL's radio physics research group, which developed the world's most precise radio telescope in 1950, a year after he earned a Ph.D. in astronomy at Georgetown. In 1955 he became director of the Vanguard earth satellite program and, when that program became part of NASA on 1 October 1958, he remained chief of the NASA Vanguard division and then (1958-1960) became assistant director of space flight development. In February 1960 he became director of NASA's office for the United Nations conference and later, assistant director of NASA's office of plans and program evaluation. In 1962 he set up a graduate program of radio astronomy at Pennsylvania State University, retiring from there as head of the astronomy department in 1975. ("John P. Hagen," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
James C. Hagerty (1909-1981) was on the staff of the New York Times from 1934 to 1942, the last four years as legislative correspondent in the paper's Albany bureau. He served as executive assistant to New York Governor Thomas Dewey from 1943 to 1950 and then as Dewey's secretary for the next two years before becoming press secretary for President Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961.
Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was a writer in the United States during the middle part of the nineteenth century. He was best known for his short story "The Man Without a Country," about a conspirator in the 1803 attempt of Aaron Burr to create a separate nation in the American West. He was widely regarded as one of the foremost literary figures of his time and was the primary speaker at the dedication of the Civil War cemetery in Gettysburg in 1863 at which Lincoln gave his famous address. (Jean Holloway, Edward Everett Hale: A Biography (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1956).)
Leonard W. Hall (1900-1979) (R-NY) was a congressman from 1939-1952 and then served as chairman of the Republican national committee from 1953-1957. A lawyer, he then became the senior partner in the Long Island law firm of Hall, Casey, Dickler, & Brady.
Edmund Halley (1656-1742) was an English astronomer and physicist. He made a number of significant astronomical discoveries, including the well-known comet that bears his name. He also catalogued the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. (See David Millar, Ian Millar, John Millar, and Margaret Millar, The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996) and The Encycolopedia Americana International Edition (Danbury, CT: Grolier, Inc. 1996), volume 13).
Irwin P. Halpern served as the director of NASA's Policy Analysis Staff in the mid 1960s. He previously worked at the Central Intelligence Agency on Soviet and Chinese political-military affairs and doctrine. He received a Ph.D. in Soviet History from Columbia University. "Miscellaneous NASA," Biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
Philip Handler (1910-1981) was chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Handler served as President of the National Academy of Sciences from 1969 to 1981, where he was a leading spokesman for excellence in American scientific endeavors. In addition to his Academy presidency, Dr. Handler served as a member, and subsequently as vice chairman and chairman of the National Science Board from 1962 to 1970. He was instrumental in the development of the National Science Foundation. (SOURCE?)
Grant L. Hansen (1921- ) was an engineer in the aerospace industry before serving as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development from 1969-1973. Who's Who in America, 1996 (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1995).
Richard Harkness (1907-1977) was a radio and television news commentator who became NBC's Washington correspondent in 1943 and stayed in that position through 1970.
Bryce N. Harlow (1916-1987) was deputy assistant to the president for congressional Affairs, a position he had held since 1959. He had held other positions on the White House staff since 1953. From 1938 to 1951 he was on the congressional staff, rising to be chief clerk, 1950-1951. In 1951-1952 he was vice president of Harlow Pub. Corp in Oklahoma City. He became director of governmental relations for Proctor and Gamble Manufacturing Company from 1961 to 1969 and then rejoined the White House as assistant to the president for legislative and congressional Affairs, becoming counselor to the president, 1969-1970. He served as vice president of Proctor and Gamble, 1970-1973, then returned as counselor to the president at the height of the Watergate scandal, remaining until April 1974, when he resigned and returned to private life.
Karl G. Harr, Jr. (1922- ) was special assistant to the president and vice chair of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) between 1958 and 1961. Before that he had been a special intelligence officer with the U.S. Army in World War II, attended Yale Law School, and practiced law until 1954 when he began work with the Department of State. In 1963 he assumed the presidency of the Aerospace Industries Association and served until 1988. In 1989 he was named a senior fellow with the Eisenhower Institute for World Affairs. ("Karl G. Harr, Jr.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Rupert Vance Hartke (1919- ) (D-IN) was first elected to the Senate in 1958 and served until 1977.
John W. Harvey (1941 - ) was one of eight finalists selected to be payload specialists aboard STS-51F to perform experiments on Spacelab 2. He graduated from the University of Colorado and was a scientist at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. See “Harvey, John,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
George Haskell (1940- ) is a British physicist who has worked for the European Space Agency since 1972. From 1972-1987, he worked in ESA's space science planning office and from 1987-1992, he served as the liaison officer for scientific use of the space station. He has also served as associate dean and vice president for academic affairs of the International Space University. Miscellaneous foreign biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Carl T. Hayden (1877-1972) (D-AZ) served the new state of Arizona in Congress from 1912 to 1927. Elected to the Senate in 1926, he remained a senator until 1969 and was president pro tempore of the Senate from 1957-1969.
John Tucker Hayward (1910- ) was a career naval officer and naval aviator whose assignments had included the Manhattan Project and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Base, Sandia, NM. He was serving as deputy commanding officer for research and development, Navy Department, from 1957 to 1963. He became a vice admiral in 1959, retired in 1968, and became vice president of General Dynamics Corporation in that year.
Donald H. Heaton was an Air Force officer who from 1951 to 1957 as a lieutenant colonel and colonel had served on various subcommittees of the NACA committee on power plants for aircraft as well as on the committee itself. Available information does not indicate just when he joined NASA Headquarters, but the August 1959 telephone directory shows him working in the office of the assistant director of propulsion within the office of space flight development. He served in a variety of positions connected with launch vehicles, and in June 1961 Associate Administrator Robert Seamans appointed him chairman of an ad hoc task group to formulate plans and determine the resources necessary to carry out a manned lunar landing. His group submitted its summary report in August 1961. He appears to have left NASA Headquarters sometime between June and October 1963. ("Donald H. Heaton," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection and headquarters telephone directories for the period; on his committee's report, see esp. Courtney G. Brooks, James M. Grimwood, and Loyd S. Swenson, Jr., _Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft_ [Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-4205, 1979], pp. 45, 70-72.)
F. Edward Hebert (1901-1979) (D-LA) was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1932 and came to Washington as part of the Democratic sweep that led to the "New Deal" legislation of 1933-1935. He retired from office in 1976 after being stripped of his chairmanship of the House Armed Services Committee (obituary in New York Times, December 31, 1979, p. A13).
\Walter Hedrick (1921- ) was an Air Force Brigadier General who was involved in space systems throughout the 1960s. In 1967, he became the Air Force's director of space, deputy chief of staff, research and development. See U.S. Air Force Biography, June 15, 1969, for Brigadier General Walter R. Hedrick, Jr. History Office, Air Force Materiel Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) was a well-known science fiction author who began publishing stories before World War II and continued a celebrated career until his death. He published more than sixty books, among the best known were Starship Troopers (1952), Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) (obituary in New York Times, May 10, 1988, p. D2). A more in-depth biography is available at the private Heinlein Society website.
Klaus P. Heiss (1941- ) is an Austrian-born economist who prepared a major economic feasibility study for the Space Shuttle program in 1971. He later worked with Econ, Inc., and founded and headed Space Transportation Corp., in Princeton, New Jersey. See "Heiss, Klaus P., Biographical File," NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Harlow J. Heneman (1906-1983), besides being a general partner of Cresap, McCormick and Paget, was a management consultant. He held a Ph.D. from the University of London and was on the political science faculty of the University of Michigan from 1933-1945. Thereafter, he held a number of positions in and outside of government, including that of management analyst with the Bureau of the Budget, 1944-1945.
Karl G. Henize (1926-1993) received a B.A. degree in Mathematics in 1947 and an M.A. degree in astronomy in 1948 from the University of Virginia, and his Ph.D. (astronomy) in 1954 from the University of Michigan. NASA selected him as a scientist-astronaut in August 1967. He completed the initial academic training and the 53-week jet pilot training program at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma. He was a member of the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 15 mission and for the Skylab 2, 3, and 4 missions, and mission specialist for the ASSESS-2 Spacelab simulation mission in 1977. He has logged 2,300 hours flying time in jet aircraft. He was also a mission specialist on the Spacelab-2 mission (STS 51-F), which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on July 29, 1985. In 1986 he accepted a position as senior scientist in NASA’s Office of Space Science. See “Henize, Karl G.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Richard C. Henry was a career United States Air Force officer involved in the development of space systems during the last part of his service. He was commander of Air Force Space Division, Los Angeles, California, between 1978 and 1982, and Vice Commander of Air Force Space Commander for almost a year in 1982-1983, retiring as a lieutenant general. See Aerospace Daily, February 9, 1983, p. 232.
Christian A. Herter (1895-1966) was undersecretary of state, 1957-1959, and then succeeded John Foster Dulles as secretary of state from 1959-1961. He never achieved the level of mutual understanding with President Eisenhower that Dulles had enjoyed, however, and thus failed to have the sort of influence in developing the administration's foreign policy that his predecessor had achieved. (Chester Pach and Elmo Richardson, _The Presidency of Eisenhower_ [Lawrence: University Press ofKansas, 1989] p. 204.)
Henry R. Hertzfeld (1943- ) is a senior research scientist at the George Washington University's Space Policy Institute. Previously he served as the senior economist at NASA and as a policy analyst at the National Science Foundation. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Temple University and a J.D. degree from the George Washington University. "Miscellaneous NASA" Biographical File, NASA Historical Refence Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
Harry H. Hess (1906-1969) was one of the senior scientists involved in analyzing the lunar samples returned to Earth by Project Apollo. Blair Professor of Geology at Princeton University, he was chair of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences during the Apollo era. See “Hess, Harry H.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Walter J. Hickel (1919- ) was governor of Alaska and then Secretary of the Interior from 1969-1970. Who's Who in America 1996 (New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who, 1996).
Bourke B. Hickenlooper (1896-1971) (R-IA), a former governor of Iowa (1943-1944), was first electedto the U.S. Senate in 1944 and served until 1969.
Daniel C. Hickson (1906- ) had been the vice president of Bankers Trust Co. since 1947.
Earl D. Hilburn (1920- ) was trained in physics and mathematics at the University of Wisconsin and worked for more than twenty years in the electronics and aerospace industry before accepting a position at NASA in 1963 as Deputy Associate Administrator. In that post he was responsible for industry affairs, and helped maintain liaison with the far-flung corporations involved in the production of NASA space hardware. In 1966 he left NASA and became president of Western Union. See "Hilburn, Earl D.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Lister Hill (1894-1984) (D-AL) was elected to fill a vacant position in the House of Representatives in 1923 and served until 1939. The previous year, he had been elected to fill an unexpired term in the Senate, where he served through 1969.
Noel W. Hinners (1935 - ) was trained in geochemistry and geology at Rutgers University, California Institute of Technology, and Princeton University. He began his career in 1963 with Bellcomm, Inc., working on the Apollo program, and came to NASA Headquarters in 1972 as the deputy director of lunar programs in the Office of Space Science. From 1974 to 1979, he was NASA associate administrator for Space Science. He also served, from 1979 to 1982, as director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, and between 1982 and 1987 he was director of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He then became associate deputy administrator of NASA. He left the agency in 1989 to join the Martin Marietta Corporation as vice president of strategic planning. See "Hinners, Noel W.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
John H. Hinrichs (1904- ) was a career army officer and at this time was deputy chief of ordnance, U.S. Army Field Services Division. He had been promoted to major general in 1954.
Wesley L. Hjornevik (1926- ) began federal service in 1949 as a budget examiner and program analyst. In 1957 he became assistant to the under secretary in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and in October of the next year he moved to NASA as assistant to T. Keith Glennan. He became deputy director of business administration on 15 December 1959. In 1961 he became associate director for manned space flight in Houston, Texas, serving until October 1969 when he became the deputy director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. In 1974 he became the director of public administration for the state of Texas. ("Wesley L. Hjornevik," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
John Hodge (1929- ) began a distinguished career at NASA in 1959. He worked in the area of flight control at Langley Research Center and the Johnson Space Center until 1970. In 1982 he became Director of the Space Station Task Force at NASA Headquarters. He then took on a series of increasingly responsible positions dealing with the Space Station, culminating with him being named Associate Administrator for Operations, Space Station, in 1986. "Hodge, John," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Alfred S. Hodgson was NASA's director of management analysis from 1958-1960 and then became director of business administration in the headquarters. By 1962 he was assistant to the director of administration, and thereafter he became the director of the headquarters administration office, a position from which he appears to have retired during 1968. (Miscellaneous biographical file and headquarters telephone directories, Sept. and Dec. 1968, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
William M. Holaday (1901- ) was special assistant to the secretary of defense for guided missiles between 1957 and 1958, then DOD director of guided missiles in 1958 and chairman of the civilian-military liaison committee, 1958-1960. Previously Holaday had been associated with a variety of research and development activities, notably as director of research for the Socony-Mobil Oil Co., 1937-1944. ("William M. Holaday," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
William M. Holaday (1901- ) was special assistant to the secretary of defense for guided missiles between 1957 and 1958, then Department of Defense director of guided missiles in 1958 and chairman of the civilian-military liaison committee, 1958-1960. Previously Holaday had been associated with a variety of research and development activities, notably as director of research for the Socony-Mobil Oil Co., 1937-1944. ("William M. Holaday," biographical file, NASA HistoricalReference Collection.)
Chester E. Holifield (1903- ) (D-CA) was first elected to the House of Representatives in1942 and served until the mid-1970s.
Spessard L. Holland (1892-1971) (D-FL) was first appointed and then elected to the Senate in 1946 and served there until 1970.
Harry C. Holloway served as NASA’s associate administrator for life and microgravity sciences and applications from 1993-1996, while on temporary assignment to NASA from the school of medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Holloway also served NASA in the capacities of chairman of the NASA aerospace medicine advisory committee and member of the U.S./U.S.S.R. joint working group on space biology and medicine. See “Holloway, Harry,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
D. Brainard 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 Labs, 1945-1953, and at RCA, 1953-1961. He then became Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight at NASA, 1961-1963. Thereafter he assumed a series of increasingly senior positions with Raytheon Corp., and since 1982 chairman of Beech Aircraft. See "D. Brainard Holmes" biographical file 001048, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC; "Holmes, D(yer) Brainerd," Current Biography 1963, pp. 191-92.
Thomas Edward Holzer (1944 - ) was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Role of Theory in Space Science from 1980 through 1982. He also served on the NASA sponsored Panel on Solar Terrestrial Theory from 1978 through 1979. In 1989, he was chairman of a Heliospheric SR&T Review Panel sponsored by the Space Physics Division of NASA, and served concurrently as a senior scientist at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center of Atmospheric Research and adjunct professor of astrophysics and planetary and atmospheric science at the University of Colorado. See “Holzer, Thomas Edward” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
Valerie Hood (1945- ) is a lawyer specializing in space law who has worked for the International Affairs Branch of the European Space Agency since 1976. Miscellaneous foreign biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
George W. Hoover was an early space enthusiast who had entered the Navy in 1944 and become a pilot. He moved to the Office of Naval Research to conduct a program in all-weather flight instrumentation. Later he helped originate the idea of high- altitude balloons that were used in a variety of projects like Skyhook, which supported cosmic-ray research and served as a research vehicle for obtaining environmental data relevant to supersonic flight, among other uses. In 1954 he was project officer in the field of high-speed, high-altitude flight, with involvement in the Douglas D558 project leading to the X-15. Hoover was also instrumental in establishing Project Orbiter with von Braun and others, resulting in the launch of Explorer I, the first American satellite. "George W. Hoover,"biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Richard E. Horner (1917- ) was associated with aerospace activities throughout his career. He served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, and was director of flight test engineering at Wright Field, Ohio (1944-1945 and 1947-1949). He was promoted to colonel in 1948. Between 1950 and 1955 he was first technical director and then senior engineer for the Air Force Flight Test Center at Muroc, California. In May 1955, Horner became deputy for requirements in the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force, R&D, and in 1957 he became assistant secretary for research & development. In June 1959 he left the Air Force to become NASA associate administrator. He resigned from NASA in July 1960 and became senior vice president of the Northrop Corp. In 1970 he joined the E.F. Johnson Co. as president and chief executive officer. ("Richard E. Horner" biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Donald F. Hornig (1920 - ), a chemist, was a research associate at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Lab, 1943-1944, and a scientist and group leader at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1944-1946. He taught chemistry at Brown University starting in 1946, rising to the directorship of Metcalf Research Lab, 1949-1957, and also serving as associate dean and acting dean of the graduate school from 1952-1954. He was Donner Professor of Science at Princeton from 1957-1964 as well as chairman of the chemistry department from 1958-1964. He was a special assistant to the president of the U.S. for science and technology from 1964-1969 and president of Brown University from 1970-1976. See Gregg Herken, Cardinal Choices: Science Advice to the President from Hiroshima to SDI (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Norman H. Horowitz (1915- ) was a biologist educated at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), receiving a Ph.D. in 1939. He made a career as a scientist at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. At JPL he worked as a scientist on the Viking Mars lander program.
John C. Houbolt (1919 - ) was an aeronautical engineer who helped conceptualize and was the primary advocate for the idea of lunar orbit rendezvous. He received both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois in 1940 and 1942, and a doctorate in technical sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1957. He first joined NACA as an aeronautical engineer in 1942 before serving in the Army Corps of Engineers from 1944 to 1946. In 1949, back at Langley, he was appointed Assistant Chief of the Dynamic Loads Division where he pursued research problems in aeroelasticity in application to aircraft and space vehicles. In 1961 Houbolt was named Chief of the Theoretical Mechanics Division at Langley where he successfully argued the case of lunar orbit rendezvous to the NASA administration. He left NASA in 1963 to work as a senior vice president and consultant for a private research firm, but then returned to Langley in 1976 as Chief Aeronautical Scientist. Houbolt officially retired from NASA in 1985. See James R. Hansen, Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Monographs in Aerospace History No. 4, 1995) and “Houbolt, John C.,” biographical file 001100, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Robert Franklin Howard (1932 - ) with his colleague Harold Zirin, attempted to build a 65-centimeter Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) in the mid-1960s. Among his many positions he served as director of the National Solar Observatory, Tucson, Arizona, from 1984 to 1988. From 1988 to 1998, he was an astronomer of the Observatory, and later assumed the status of astronomer emeritus. See “Howard, Robert Franklin” in Who’s Who in America, 1956, 10th Ed. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1955.
Roman Lee Hruska (1904- ) (R-NB) was elected to the House of Representatives in 1952 and to the Senate in 1954. He remained in the Senate until 1976.
Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) was considered by many people to be the greatest astronomer of the twentieth century. Hubble made a number of key discoveries about the nature of galaxies such as classifying them into spiral, elliptical, and irregular categories. Perhaps his most famous discovery became known as Hubble's Law and states that all galaxies except those closest to the Milky Way are receding from us and at speeds proportional to their distances from us. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is named after him. ("Hubble, Edwin P." biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.)
Karl George Hufbauer (1937 - ) is a science historian. He started his career in 1966 at the University of California, Irvine, as an assistant professor, and then a professor. From 1984 through 1990 he worked for NASA Headquarters as a contract historian. He is the author of Exploring the Sun, 1991, which won the Emme prize in 1993. See “Hufbauer, Karl George” in Who’s Who in America, 2000, 54th Ed. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who’s Who, 1999.
Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978) (D-MN) served in the U.S. Senate, 1949-1964 and 1971-1978. As senator he pressed for the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Science and Technology in early 1958 that was defeated by the president's proposal to establish NASA. He was vice president of the United States between 1965 and 1968 (obituary in New York Times, January 14, 1978, p. 1).
James W. Humphreys earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He subsequently received an M.D. from the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond in 1939; and an M.S. in surgery from the University of Colorado in 1951. From 1967 to 1970, Dr. Humphreys served as NASA’s director of space medicine, before his appointment as NASA director of life sciences in the office of manned space flight later in 1970. See “Humphreys, James,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Arthur James Hundhausen (1936 - ) started his professional experience in 1964 in the theoretical division of Los Alamos Science Laboratory. He has concurrently served as a staff scientist at the High Altitude Observatory, and a lecturer at the University of Colorado, since 1971. In 1976, he was a participant in the National Academy of Sciences “Solar Physics Study.” See “Hundhausen, Arthur James” in American Men and Women of Science, 1998-99, 20th Ed. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bower, 1998.
Jerome C. Hunsaker (1886-1984) was a senior aeronautical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was heavily involved in the development of the science of flight in America for the first three-quarters of the twentieth century. See Roger D. Launius, "Jerome C. Hunsaker," in Emily J. McMurray, et al., eds., Notable twentieth-Century Scientists (New York: Gale Research Inc., 1995), pp. 980-81.
Wesley Huntress (1942 - ) earned a B.S. in chemistry from Brown University in 1964 and a Ph.D in chemical physics from Stanford University in 1968. Huntress subsequently began work on the science staff at California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He left JPL and came to NASA where he served as assistant to the director of the Earth sciences and applications division, from 1988 to 1990. Dr. Huntress directed the Solar System Exploration Division from 1990 to 1992. In 1993, he became associate administrator for space science where he remained until joining the Carnegie Institution of Washington staff in 1998. See “Huntress, Wesley,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Abraham Hyatt (1910- ) earned a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1933. After working for the U.S. Geodetic Survey and private industry, in 1948 he became head of the design research branch for the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics and advanced to chief scientist and research analysis officer there, 1956-1958. In 1959 he became assistant director for propulsion in NASA. The following year he became director of NASA's office of program planning and evaluation. He remained in that position until 1964 when he became a professor at MIT and then, in 1965, executive director for corporate planning at North American Aviation, Inc. ("Abraham Hyatt," biographical files, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Josef Allen Hynek (1910-1986) contributed much to the world of astrophysics, but he is known best for his work in the study of UFO sightings. Hynek dedicated much of his life to the Air Force, working as a consultant in a special project assessing reports of UFO sightings, bringing a more scientific reputation to the field. In 1960 he became the Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University and was also the director of its Dearborn Observatory. He retired from that position in 1974 after founding The Center for UFO Studies in Evanston, IL in 1972. Dr. Hynek is also credited for coining the phrase “Close encounters of the third kind," which was used in his 1972 book, The UFO Experience, and the movie of the same title. Dr. Hynek received his bachelor’s degree and his doctorate from the University of Chicago. (“Hynek, J. A.” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.)
Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan (1905-1993) was Chief Designer at NII-627 in 1941-1974 and led the development of Soviet weather satellite systems. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Aleksey Mikhailovich Isayev (1908-1971) was Chief Designer from 1959-1971 at OKB-2 and led work on rocket engines for air defense and naval missiles and many different spacecraft. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovskiy (1922-) was Chief Designer at OKB-301 (Lavochkin) in 1971-1983. Before that, he worked on Sputnik, Luna, and Vostok spacecraft. (Provided by Asif Siddiqi)
Henry M. Jackson (1912-1983) (D-WA) was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1940 and to each succeeding Congress until 1952, when he was elected to the Senate, where he served until the mid-1980s. During the Eisenhower administration, he was a leading advocate of greater attention to the development of the U.S. missile program.
Roy Jackson (1919 - ) earned an A.B. degree in mechanical engineering with an aeronautical option from Stanford University in 1941. He served as section head in the wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center during World War II while in the Navy. Jackson worked in various posts at Northrop from 1953 to 1970. Jackson served as NASA associate administrator for aeronautics and space technology from 1970 to 1973. After leaving NASA, Jackson again worked at Northrop as the vice-president of program management. See “Jackson, Roy” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Leonard Jaffe joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1948 and worked for it and its successor organization, NASA, for 33 years before moving to the private sector in 1981. He dealt primarily with space applications, overseeing many of NASA's early efforts in remote sensing and satellite communications. "Jaffe, Leonard," Biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
Lee B. James (1920- ) was a career Army officer, trained at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the California Institute of Technology who was assigned to the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Huntsville, AL, in 1956. In 1960 he became deputy director of the Army's newly formed Research and Development Division. In 1962 he was assigned to the Marshall Space Flight Center and the next year became deputy director of the Apollo Program in NASA Headquarters. In 1968 he returned to Marshall to head the Saturn Program Office, retired from the Army as a colonel, and only a year later was elevated as the director of the overall Program Office at Marshall. James retired from NASA in 1971 and accepted a faculty position at the University of Tennessee Space Institute in Tullahoma. See "James, Lee. B.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Kenneth A. Janes is a professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University. He received his A.B. degree from Harvard College, his M.S. degree from San Diego State University, and his Ph.D. from Yale University. In 1976 he was the study director of the “Solar Physics Study” of the National Academy of Sciences. See “Kenneth A. Janes” at http://www.bu.edu/htbin/webph/query.pl?id=X4876&ret.
Karl G. Jansky (1905-1950) was a researcher for Bell Laboratories in New Jersey who, while studying the static that often disrupted radio communications, discovered interstellar radio waves. Thus the field of radio astronomy was born. "Karl G. Jansky," Biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
Robert Jastrow (1925-2008 ) earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Columbia in 1948 and pursued post-doctoral studies at Leiden, Princeton (Institute for Advanced Studies), and the University of California at Berkeley before becoming an assistant professor at Yale in 1953-1954. He then served on the staff at the Naval Research Laboratory from 1954-1958. In the latter year he was appointed chief of the theoretical division of the Goddard Spaceflight Center. He became director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in 1961 and stayed at its helm for 20 years before becoming professor of earth sciences at Dartmouth. He specialized in nuclear physics, plasma physics, geophysics, and the physics of the moon and terrestrial planets. ("Robert Jastrow,"biographical files, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters,Washington, D.C.)
Jacob K. Javits (1904-1986) (R-NY) was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and served through 1954. After a term as attorney general of New York, he was elected to the Senate in 1956 and served until 1980.
Ben Franklin Jensen (1892-1970) (R-IA) was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1938 and served into the mid- 1960s.
Caldwell C. Johnson was a longtime NASA official who held a number of positions in the Apollo Program at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, in the 1960s. He started work at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Hampton, Virginia, in 1938 and worked in a variety of aeronautical engineering activities. He moved to Houston with the Space Task Group in 1962. He retired from NASA and became chief of design for Space Industries, Inc., in Texas. "Johnson, Caldwell C.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Clarence L. (Kelly) Johnson (1910-1990) was one of the foremost aircraft designers in the United States. As the head of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's famous "Skunk Works" design center, he headed the effort to build the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1950s. He also worked on the F-80 "Shooting Star," the first U.S. jet aircraft, and the SR-71 "Blackbird" reconnaissance plane that still holds speed records. During World War II he was also responsible for the design of the P-38 twin-tailed fighter, "Lightning." He worked for Lockheed from 1933 until his retirement as senior vice president in 1975. See Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson with Maggie Smith, Kelly: More Than My Share of it All (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985).
David S. Johnson was the Environmental Satellite Center director of the Environmental Science Service Administration in the mid 1960s. "Miscellaneous Other Agency," Biography file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
John A. Johnson (1915-2005) , after completing law school at the University of Chicago in 1940, practiced in Chicago until 1943 when he entered military service with the Navy. From 1946 to 1948 he was an assistant for international security affairs in the Department of State. He joined the office of the general counsel of the Department of the Air Force in 1949 and served until 7 October 1958 (for the last six years as the general counsel) when he accepted the general counsel position in NASA. In 1963 he left NASA to become director of international arrangements at the Communications Satellite Corporation. The next year he became a vice president of COMSAT, and in 1973, senior vice president and then chief executive officer. He retired in 1980. See "Johnson, J.A." Biographical File, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Louis A. Johnson (1891-1966) was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of War (1937-1940), and U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1949-1950. See obituary in New Young Times, April 25, 1966, p. 31.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) was President of the United States from 1963-1969. Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1937 and served until 1949. He was a senator from 1949-1961 and then Vice President of the U.S. from 1960-1963 under Kennedy. 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 chairman of the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences and of the preparedness subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, then later as chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council when he was vice president. (On his role in support of the space program, Robert A. Divine, "Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Space," in The Johnson Years: Vietnam, the Environment, and Science, Robert A. Divine, ed. [Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1987], pp. 217-53; and Robert Dallek, "Johnson, Project Apollo, and the Politics of Space Program Planning," unpublished paper delivered at a symposium on "Presidential Leadership, Congress, and the U.S. Space Program," sponsored by NASA and American University, March 25, 1993.)
Nicholas L. Johnson is NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center. Previously, he worked in private industry and was considered an expert on the Soviet space program. "Johnson, Nicholas L." Biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
Roy W. Johnson (1906-1965) was named the first director of the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency and served from 1958-1959. As such, he was head of DoD's initial space efforts. Prior to joining the government, he worked for the General Electric Company and retired as an executive vice president. "Johnson, Roy W." Biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, Washington, DC.
U. Alexis Johnson (1908- ) was a longtime member of the U.S. Foreign Service and served in a number of embassies around the world. A specialist in Asian affairs, he was attached to the embassy in Tokyo, 1935-1938; consul general to Japan, 1947-1949; and ambassador to Japan, 1966-1969. He served on several international commissions and in numerous senior positions with the Department of State in Washington, D.C., most significantly as under secretary of state for political affairs beginning in 1969 until his retirement. Miscellaneous other agency biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
Vincent L. Johnson (1918- ) was a longtime NASA official, joining NASA in 1960 after working as an aerospace engineer with the Navy since 1947. He managed the Launch Vehicle and Propulsion Programs Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and had primary responsibility for the program management of Scout, Delta, and Centaur launch vehicle development. He retired from NASA in 1974, after having served as Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Science. See "Johnson, V.L.," biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
S. Paul Johnston was director of the Institute for Aeronautical Sciences. He was also a member of the Purcell Panel that assessed space flight capabilities for the U.S. government in 1957-1958.
Charlie Jonas (1904- ) served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1953-1973, as a Republican from North Carolina. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-1989, (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989).
Robert T. Jones designed swept-back wings in 1944 while working as a scientist for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Pivoting them back created less wind resistance, allowing for supersonic speeds with the same engine power. Virtually every commercial and military jet uses the design today. He also invented the oblique wing, a new design that is thought to improve fuel economy and increase airspeed. See “Jones, R.T.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
Roger W. Jones (1908- ) worked in various capacities for the Bureau of the Budget from 1939 to 1959, rising in the last two years to be deputy director. He was chairman of the Civil Service Commission from 1959 to 1961. He held various other government posts thereafter, including that of assistant director, Office of Management and Budget, 1969-1971.
Walton L. Jones (1918 - ) earned a B.S. degree in 1939 and an M.D. in 1942 from Emory University. Dr. Jones came to NASA in 1964 on detail and remained until his retirement from the Navy in 1966. Before NASA, he served as director of the aviation and medicine technical division of the navy bureau of medicine and surgery, and as aerospace medical advisor to the bureau of aeronautics. Dr. Jones served as director of NASA’s biotechnology and human research division, later became deputy director for life sciences, and then director of the office of occupational medicine. See “Jones, Walton L. Jr.” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
John Erik Jonsson (1901-1995) was an engineer and businessman who was Chairman of the Board of Texas Instruments, Inc. from 1958-1966. He later became Mayor of Dallas. Biographical information from the Corporate Archives Office of Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, TX.
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Updated April 4, 2008
Steven J. Dick, NASA Chief Historian
Steve Garber, NASA History Web Curator
For further information E-mail histinfo@hq.nasa.gov