George E. Mueller
| George E. Mueller | |
|---|---|
George E. Mueller (1968)
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| Born |
George Edwin Mueller July 16, 1918 St. Louis, Missouri |
| Died | October 12, 2015 (aged 97) Irvine, California |
| Education | Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, 1938; Master of Science, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, 1939; Doctor of Philosophy, in Physics from Ohio State University, 1951. |
| Spouse(s) | Maude Darla |
| Parent(s) | Ella Florence Bosch, Mother; Edwin Mueller, Father |
| Engineering career | |
| Institutions | NASA |
| Projects |
Gemini Apollo Skylab |
| Awards | National Medal of Science (1971) |
George Edwin Mueller (pronounced /ˈmɪlɚ/ ("Miller"); July 16, 1918 – October 12, 2015), was associate administrator of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight from September 1963 until December 1969. Hailed as one of NASA's "most brilliant and fearless managers", he was instrumental in introducing the all-up testing philosophy for the Saturn V launch vehicle, which ensured the success of the Apollo program in landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of 1969. Mueller also played a key part in the design of Skylab, and championed the space shuttle's development, which earned him the nickname, "the father of the space shuttle."
More recently, Mueller was chairman and chief vehicle architect of the now defunct Kistler Aerospace Corp.
George Mueller was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 16, 1918. His mother, a high school graduate, was from Belleville, Illinois and had been a secretary, but she never worked after marriage. His father was an electrician who began working as a boy and never went to high school, but later became superintendent of an electrical motor repair shop in St. Louis. Both parents were English speakers, but also spoke German, although Mueller never learned it well enough to converse. He went to Benton School in St. Louis until the 8th grade, when he and his parents moved to a larger house in the country called Bel Nor, and later graduated from Normandy High School.
The young Mueller enjoyed reading science fiction and, helped by his grandfather, woodworking – although his first model ship capsized. When he was aged 11 or 12 Mueller also built and raced model aircraft – such as gliders and rubber band model airplanes. Always curious about how things worked, he also built radios, following in the footsteps of his father. Interested in these activities, the teenage Mueller wanted to be an aeronautical engineer but discovered that where he could afford to go to school, the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) in Rolla, Missouri, there was no aeronautical engineering department. They did offer mechanical engineering, so he enrolled in that program but found it discouraging and switched to electrical engineering.
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