Newsletter of the Flying Leatherneck Historical Foundation
SUMMER / FALL 2020
JAMES E. WEBB Former NASA Administrator - and Marine Aviator! Lt Colonel Joe Bassi, Ph.D., (USAF, Ret.)
T
he James Webb Space Telescope, due to be launched in the next few years, is the United States’ ten billion dollar follow-on to the now legendary Hubble Space Telescope. Few people know that the namesake of this next great leap forward in space-based astronomy, James E. Webb (19061992), was a veteran Marine aviator. Unlike Hubble and many others who have had telescopes named after them, Webb was not a famed scientist. Rather, he is unknown to the vast majority of Americans. Who was James Webb, and why is this important work of scientific technology being named in his honor? Among the many other significant positions he held in the US government, Webb was the second administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In this role, he was instrumental in getting the United States to the moon in 1969. Serving as NASA administrator for eight full
years (1961-1968), Webb oversaw the creation and execution of much of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo human spaceflight programs. The successful landing of the “Eagle” lunar module carrying Neil Armstrong and Colonel Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969 was due in no small part to Webb’s efforts as head of NASA and his successful management of the 25 billion dollar program.1 How then did he become administrator of NASA at this crucial and dynamic period in the Cold War and the resulting space race between the United States and the Soviet Union? Few people were thinking of going to the moon when James Edwin Webb was born on October 7, 1906. As well befitting a future Marine aviator, Tally Ho, North Carolina was Webb’s home town. He attended college at the University of North Carolina. While a student, he participated in the university’s ROTC program. Graduating in 1928 with a bachelor’s degree in Continued on page 3