Who was the director of NASA when a United States Marine Corps aviator circled the Earth three times?
D. Brainerd Holmes Dyer Brainerd Holmes (May 24, 1921 – January 11, 2013), known professionally as D. Brainerd Holmes, was an American engineer and business executive. He was perhaps best known for directing NASA's manned spaceflight program from September 1961 to June 1963, when John Glenn made the pivotal first US orbital spaceflight, but Holmes was also the president of international defense contractor Raytheon. He retired from that post in 1986.
Daniel W. Bursch Daniel Wheeler Bursch (born July 25, 1957) is a former NASA astronaut, and Captain of the United States Navy. He had four spaceflights, the first three of which were Space Shuttle missions lasting 10 to 11 days each. His fourth and final spaceflight was a long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station as a crew member of Expedition 4, which lasted from December 2001 to June 2002. This 196-day mission set a new record for the longest duration spaceflight for an American astronaut, a record simultaneously set with his crew mate Carl Walz. This record has since been broken, and as of 2010 it is held by Michael Lopez-Alegria, who had a 215-day spaceflight as Commander of Expedition 14.