November 1979
From The Space Library
NASA announced appointment effective immediately of Glynn S. Lunney, manager of JSC's Shuttle payload and integration development program, as acting associate administrator for STS operations at Headquarters. Lunney would set up the new office that resulted from NASA's decision to separate STS acquisition from operations, reporting to Deputy Administrator Dr. Alan M. Lovelace. Lunney had been with NASA since 1959, serving at LeRC and LaRC and going to Houston when the MSFC was created. There, he was technical director of the [[Apollo-Soyuz Test Project]] 1972-1975 and was deputy associate administrator for space flight at Headquarters before taking the position at JSC in August 1977. (NASA Release 79-156; NASA anno Nov 16/79)
NASA announced appointment of A. Thomas Young as director of GSFC, succeeding Dr. Robert Cooper, who left government service in June. Young, deputy director of ARC since February 1979, had been with NASA since 1961 and had worked at LaRC as mission director for the Viking mission to Mars and mission-definition manager for the Lunar Orbiter project. Before assignment to ARC, he had headed the Headquarters Office of Space Sciences planetary program. (NASA Release 79-164; NASA, anno Nov 30/79)
NASA announced that John W. Boyd, on detail as deputy director of DFRC since January 1, would return January 1, 1980, to his post as associate director of ARC. He had begun working at ARC in 1949 as an aeronautical engineer, becoming research assistant to the director of ARC in 1966 and deputy director for aeronautics and flight systems in 1970, serving in that position until his detail to DFRC. He was named associate director of ARC in July 1979. (NASA anno Nov 19/79)
DFRC announced that Robert P. Johannes would become deputy director of DFRC, effective December 1, replacing John W. Boyd. Formerly with the U.S. Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Johannes joined NASA in 1979 and had been director of engineering at DFRC. (DFRC Release 79-40)
The Washington Star reported that MSFC engineer Frank J. Nola had received the first Excalibur award for his invention of a device that could cut power consumption of electrical appliances by 30 to 60% [see September 11]. A committee selected Nola from 120 nominees to receive the award, set up to honor the contributions of federal workers. (W Star, Nov 30/79, D-1)
The Washington Post reported the death November 17 of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, 84, Russian-born author and scholar "whose theories of cosmic evolution unleashed decades of scientific controversy." He had come to the United States in 1939 and had done the research for his book Worlds in Collision (1950) at Columbia University Library in New York. His ideas in this and other books were widely denounced, but evidence gathered later by deep space probes appeared to bear out some of his predictions. When Worlds in Collision had its 72nd printing in 1974, Velikovsky said he looked forward to ultimate vindication: "I have been proven correct too many times," he added. A Washington Star editorial said that, "however farfetched his theories, he arrived at them honestly and stood by them courageously." (W Post, Nov 19/79, B-7; W Star, Nov 21/79, A-8)
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