Maxim A. Faget

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Maxime Faget
The Mercury spacecraft , the first manned US spacecraft, was based on Faget's design.

Maxime Allan Faget (born August 26, 1921 in Stann Creek , British Honduras , † October 9, 2004 in Houston , Texas ) was an American NASA space technician who worked on every NASA manned space project up to the space shuttle . He developed the spacecraft of the Mercury program.

Life

Faget attended Junior College in San Francisco , California . He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from State University in Louisiana in 1943 . He then served three years on a submarine in the US Navy .

In 1946 he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), from which NASA emerged in 1958 . At NACA, Faget worked at the Langley Research Center in Hampton , Virginia . His field of work included the development of rocket-propelled aircraft models to research aerodynamics at very high speeds. One of these aircraft reached an altitude of over 19 km and a speed of Mach  3.2 in 1950 . He was also involved in the concept development of the X-15 aircraft and the design of the Polaris rocket.

From 1957 Faget designed a spaceship for manned space travel, which later became the Mercury spaceship. When the NACA was absorbed by NASA, Faget was a member of the Space Task Group (STG), whose main task was the Mercury project. Later he was responsible for the design, development and testing of spaceships at NASA. This then also included the Gemini and Apollo spaceships .

As early as April 1969, he led feasibility studies for a reusable space shuttle, from which the space shuttle emerged. Faget resigned from NASA in 1981 after the shuttle's second space flight.

The following year he founded along with several businessmen one of the first private space companies of the USA, the Space Industries Inc. One of the products of the company where he worked, was the Wake Shield Facility , an apparatus with which one in weightlessness a high vacuum produced can. The Wake Shield Facility flew three times on the space shuttle from 1994 to 1996 (on missions STS-60, STS-69, and STS-80).

Faget died on October 9, 2004 at his home in Houston, Texas. His wife Nancy died in 1994. He left three daughters, one son and ten grandchildren. The Mount Faget , a mountain in Antarctica , bears his name.

literature

  • Maxime Faget: Space Shuttle: a New Configuration . Astronautics & Aeronautics 1970 / January / p.52
  • Faget, Silveira: Fundamental Design Considerations for an Earth-Surface-to-Orbit Shuttle . Proceedings of the XXIst International Astronautical Congress, Constance, October 5, 1970 / p.380

See also

Web links

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detailed article

personal data
SURNAME Faget, Maxime
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Faget, Maxime Allan (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American NASA space technician
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Stann Creek , British Honduras
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 2004
Place of death Houston , Texas