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.
Apollo 10 Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the United States Apollo space program, and the second (after Apollo 8) to orbit the Moon. Launched on May 18, 1969, it was the F mission: a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, testing all of the components and procedures, just short of actually landing. The Lunar Module (LM) followed a descent orbit to within 8.4 nmi of the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent for landing would normally begin. Its success enabled the first landing to be attempted on the Apollo 11 mission two months later.