WASHINGTON D. Brainerd Holmes, who directed NASAs first manned space flight program and was instrumental in developing the plan that sent astronauts to the moon, died Jan. 11 at a hospital in Memphis. He was 91. He had complications of pneumonia, said a stepson, Pierce Ledbetter.
A resident of Wellesley, Mass., Mr. Holmes also was a top executive with Raytheon Co. for decades and was credited with helping to develop and promote several of its missile systems, including the Patriot antiballistic system.
Mr. Holmes was a multitalented engineer who had designed missiles and radar systems before 1961, when he took charge of the Mercury Seven program, now a seminal development in US history but then a stuttering, oft maligned, effort. He was entrusted with a formidable task outlined by President John F. Kennedy in a speech on May 25, 1961:
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieve the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
Under Mr. Holmess short but crucial tenure at NASA, John Glenn became the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth, the Gemini and Apollo manned flight programs were developed, and the basic model for the spacecraft that took Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Buzz Aldrin to the moon was designed.
When a great nation is faced with a technological challenge, it has to accept or go backward, Mr. Holmes said in a 1962 cover story in Time magazine. Space is the future of man, and the US must keep ahead in space.
Mr. Holmes was considered both a brilliant thinker and a strong administrator who could organize complex engineering and construction programs. While at RCA in the 1950s, he had a major role in developing the Talos antiaircraft missile and the electronic systems of the Atlas missile.
He also managed a federally sponsored project to design and install the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, which was intended to detect Soviet missiles launched toward the United States. The monumental enterprise included the installation of football field-sized radar reflectors in Alaska, Greenland, and England.
At NASA, Mr. Holmes oversaw the Mercury program when Glenn captivated the nation by circling the Earth on Feb. 20, 1962. There were also space flights by other astronauts in the original Mercury Seven: Alan B. Shepard Jr., Virgil I. Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra, and Gordon Cooper. (The seventh member, Donald K.Deke Slayton, was grounded at the time by a heart condition.)
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing Mr. Holmes was figuring how to accomplish Kennedys goal of reaching the moon. Three kinds of spacecraft were considered before NASA officials decided on a three-man mission in which a lunar module would fly around the moon while two astronauts descended to the surface in a smaller landing craft.
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