Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

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Philip J. Farley (1916– ) earned a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1941 and was on the
faculty at Corpus Christi Junior College from 1941 to 1942 before entering government work for the Atomic
Energy Commission (1947–1954) and for the State Department (1954–1969). From 1957 until 1961, he was a
special assistant to the secretary of state for disarmament and atomic energy, and from 1961 to 1962, his responsibilities
shifted to atomic energy and outer space. After several years of assignment to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), he returned to Washington and became deputy secretary of state for political-military
affairs (1967–1969). Then from 1969 to 1973, he became deputy director of the U.S. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency. See “Farley, P.J.,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
James Brown Fisk (1910–1981) received his Ph.D. in physical science from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1935 and served in a variety of educational and industry positions. He was heavily involved in work
at Bell Telephone Laboratories, ultimately becoming its president. See “Fisk, J.B.,” biographical file, NASA
Historical Reference Collection.
Peter M. Flanigan (1923– ) was an assistant to the president on the White House staff from 1969 to 1974.
Previously, he had been involved in investment banking with Dillon, Read, and Co. He returned to business
when he left government service. His position in the White House involved him in efforts to gain approval to
build the Space Shuttle during the 1969–1972 period. See “Miscellaneous Other Agencies,” biographical file,
NASA Historical Reference Collection.
James C. Fletcher (1919–1991) received an undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia University and a
doctorate in physics from the California Institute of Technology. After holding research and teaching positions
at Harvard and Princeton Universities, he joined Hughes Aircraft in 1948 and later worked at the Guided Missile
Division of the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation. In 1958, Fletcher co-founded the Space Electronics Corporation
in Glendale, California, which after a merger became the Space General Corporation. He was later named systems
vice president of the Aerojet General Corporation in Sacramento. In 1964, he became president of the
University of Utah, a position he held until he was named NASA’s administrator in 1971. He served until 1977.
He also served as NASA administrator a second time, for nearly three years following the loss of the Space Shuttle
Challenger, from 1986 until 1989. During his first administration at NASA, Dr. Fletcher was responsible for beginning
the Shuttle effort. During his second tenure, he presided over the effort to recover from the Challenger accident.
See Roger D. Launius, “A Western Mormon in Washington, D.C.: James C. Fletcher, NASA, and the Final
Frontier,” Pacific Historical Review 64 (May 1995): 217–41.
Arnold W. Frutkin (1918– ) was deputy director of the U.S. National Committee for the International
Geophysical Year in the National Academy of Sciences when NASA hired him in 1959 as director of international
programs, a title that changed in 1963 to assistant administrator for international affairs. In 1978 ,he became
associate administrator for external relations, a post he relinquished in 1979 when he retired from federal service.
During his career, he had been NASA’s senior negotiator for almost all of the important international space
agreements. See “Frutkin, Arnold,” biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
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John H. Gibbons (1929– ) headed the Office of Technology Assessment under Congress for fourteen years
before becoming President Clinton’s science advisor and head of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy in 1993. He received a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University in 1954. See “Gibbons, John,”
biographical file, NASA Historical Reference Collection.
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