NASA Director of Engineering and Development
I will not have anything to do with ships which do not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way
Designer of American space vehicles, Maxime A. “Max” Faget developed the capsule that carried the first Americans into space. As the Director of Engineering and Development at NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Center (later Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas, from 1961 to 1980, Faget helped design every spacecraft from the Mercury capsule through the Space Shuttle. His concept of a two-part design featuring an orbiting command and service module and a separate lunar lander was instrumental to the success of the Apollo program. Faget was a true icon of American space exploration.