Joseph Francis Shea
Encyclopedia
Joseph Francis Shea was an American
aerospace engineer and NASA
manager. Born in the New York City
borough
of the Bronx
, he was educated at the University of Michigan
, receiving a Ph.D.
in Engineering Mechanics
in 1955. After working for Bell Labs
on the radio inertial guidance system of the Titan I
intercontinental ballistic missile
, he was hired by NASA in 1961. As Deputy Director of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, and later as head of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, Shea played a key role in shaping the course of the Apollo program
, helping to lead NASA to the decision in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous
and supporting "all up" testing of the Saturn V
rocket. While sometimes causing controversy within the agency, Shea was remembered by his former colleague George Mueller
as "one of the greatest systems engineers
of our time".
Deeply involved in the investigation of the 1967 Apollo 1
fire, Shea suffered a nervous breakdown
as a result of the stress that he suffered. He was removed from his position and left NASA shortly afterwards. From 1968 until 1990 he worked as a senior manager at Raytheon
in Lexington, Massachusetts
, and thereafter became an adjunct professor of aeronautics
and astronautics
at MIT. While Shea served as a consultant for NASA on the redesign of the International Space Station
in 1993, he was forced to resign from the position due to health issues.
, New York
, the eldest son in a working-class Irish
Catholic
family. His father worked as a mechanic on the New York subways. As a child, Shea had no interest in engineering; he was a good runner and hoped to become a professional athlete. He attended a Catholic high school
and graduated when he was only sixteen.
On graduating in 1943, Shea enlisted in the Navy
and enrolled in a program that would put him through college. He began his studies at Dartmouth College
, later moving to MIT
and finally to the University of Michigan
, where he would remain until he earned his doctorate in 1955. In 1946, he was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. Shea went on to earn a MSc
(1950) and a Ph.D. (1955) in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Michigan. While obtaining his doctorate, Shea found the time to teach at the university and to hold down a job at Bell Labs
.
. There he first worked as systems engineer on the radio guidance system
of the Titan I
intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) and then as the development and program manager on the inertial guidance system of the Titan II ICBM. Shea's specialty was systems engineering
, a new type of engineering developed in the 1950s that focused on the management
and integration of large-scale projects, turning the work of engineer
s and contractors
into one functioning whole. He played a significant role in the Titan I project; as George Mueller
writes, "[H]e contributed a considerable amount of engineering innovation and project management
skill and was directly responsible for the successful development of this pioneering guidance system
." In addition to Shea's technical abilities, it quickly became obvious that he was also an excellent manager of people. Known for his quick intellect, he also endeared himself to his subordinates through small eccentricities such as his fondness for bad pun
s and habit of wearing red socks to important meetings. During the critical days of the Titan project Shea moved into the plant, sleeping on a cot in his office so as to be available at all hours if he was needed.
Having brought in the project on time and on budget, Shea established a reputation in the aerospace community. In 1961 he was offered and accepted a position with Space Technology Laboratories, a division of TRW
Inc., where he continued to work on ballistic missile
systems.
(OMSF). Brainerd Holmes, the director of the OMSF, had been searching for a deputy who could offer expertise in systems engineering, someone with the technical abilities to supervise the Apollo program as a whole. Shea was recommended by one of Holmes' advisors, who had worked with him at Bell Labs. Although Shea had worked at Space Technology Labs for less than a year, he was captivated by the challenge offered by the NASA position. "I could see they needed good people in the space program," he later said, "and I was kind of cocky in those days."
's commitment to landing men on the moon
was still only seven months old, and many of the major decisions that shaped the Apollo program
were yet to be made. Foremost among these the mode that NASA would use to land on the moon. When Shea first began to consider the issue in 1962, most NASA engineers and managersincluding Wernher von Braun
, the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center
favored either an approach called direct ascent
, where the Apollo spacecraft would land on the moon and return to the earth as one unit, or earth orbit rendezvous
, where the spacecraft would be assembled while still in orbit around the earth. However, dissenters such as John Houbolt
, a Langley
engineer, favored an approach that was then considered to be more risky. This was lunar orbit rendezvous
, in which the landing on the moon would be accomplished using two spacecraft: a command module that remained in orbit
around the moon, and a lunar module that descended to the moon and then returned to dock with the command module while in lunar orbit.
In November 1961, John Houbolt had sent a paper advocating lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) to Robert Seamans
, the deputy administrator of NASA. As Shea remembered, "Seamans gave a copy of Houbolt's letter to Brainerd Holmes [the director of OMSF]. Holmes put the letter on my desk and said: Figure it out." Shea became involved in the lunar orbit rendezvous decision as a result of this letter. While he began with a mild preference for earth orbit rendezvous, Shea "prided himself", according to space historians Murray and Cox, "on going wherever the data took him". In this case, the data took him to NASA's Langley Research Center
in Hampton, Virginia
, where he met with John Houbolt and with the Space Task Group
, and became convinced that LOR was an option worth considering.
Shea's task now became to shepherd NASA to a firm decision on the issue. This task was complicated by the fact that he had to build consensus between NASA's different centersmost notably the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston
headed by Robert Gilruth, and the Marshall Space Flight Center
in Huntsville, Alabama
, headed by Wernher von Braun
. Relations between the centers were not good, and it was a major milestone in the progress of the Apollo program when von Braun and his team finally came to accept the superiority of the LOR concept. NASA announced its decision at a press conference on July 11, 1962, only six months after Shea had joined NASA. Space historian James Hansen concludes that Shea "played a major role in supporting Houbolt's ideas and making the... decision in favor of LOR", while his former colleague George Mueller writes that "it is a tribute to Joe's logic and leadership that he was able to build a consensus within the centers at a time when they were autonomous."
During his time at the OMSF, Shea helped to resolve many of the other inevitable engineering debates and conflicts that cropped up during the development of the Apollo spacecraft. In May 1963, he formed a Panel Review Board, bringing together representatives of the many committees that aimed to coordinate work between NASA centers. Under Shea's leadership, this coordination became far more efficient.
, the contractor responsible for the command module. As he later recounted:
It was Shea's responsibility to bring that engineering discipline to North American and to NASA's management of its contractors. His systems management experience served him well in his new post. In the coming years, any change to the design of the Apollo spacecraft would have to receive its final approval from Joe Shea. He kept control of the program using a management tool that he devised for himself—a looseleaf notebook, more than a hundred pages in length, that would be put together for him every week summarizing all of the important developments that had taken place and decisions that needed to be made. Presented with the notebook on Thursday evenings, Shea would study and annotate it over the weekend and return to work with new questions instructions, and decisions. This idiosyncratic tool allowed him to keep tabs on a complex and ever-expanding program.
Shea's relationship with the engineers at North American was a difficult one. While Shea blamed North American's management for the continuing difficulties in the development of the command module, project leader Harrison Storms
felt that NASA itself was far from blameless. It had delayed in making key design decisions, and persisted in making significant changes to the design once construction had begun. While Shea did his part in attempting to control the change requests, Storms felt that he did not understand or sympathize with the inevitable problems involved in the day-to-day work of manufacturing.
Shea was a controversial figure even at the Manned Spacecraft Center. Not having been at Langley with the Space Task Group, he was considered an "outsider" by men such as flight director Chris Kraft. Kraft recalled that "the animosity between my people and Shea's was intense". Relations between Shea and other NASA centers were even more fraught. As the deputy director of OMSF, Shea had sought to extend the authority of NASA Headquarters over the fiercely independent NASA centers. This was particularly problematic when it came to the Marshall Space Flight Center, which had developed its own culture under Wernher von Braun. Von Braun's philosophy of engineering differed from Shea's, taking a consensual rather than top-down approach. As one historian recounts, von Braun felt that "Shea had 'bitten off' too much work and was going to 'wreck' the centers engineering capabilities."
The friction between Shea and Marshall, which had begun when Shea was at OMSF, continued after he moved to his new position. He became deeply involved in supporting George Mueller's effort to impose the idea of "all up" testing of the Saturn V
rocket on the unwilling engineers at Marshall. Von Braun's approach to engineering was a conservative one, emphasizing the incremental testing of components. But the tight schedule of the Apollo program didn't allow for this slow and careful process. What Mueller and Shea proposed was to test the Saturn V as one unit on its very first flight, and Marshall only reluctantly came to accept this approach in late 1963. When later asked how he and Mueller had managed to sell the idea to von Braun, Shea responded that "we just told him that's the way it's going to be, finally."
Shea's role in resolving differences within NASA, and between NASA and its contractors, placed him in a position where criticism was inevitable. However, even Shea's critics could not help but respect his engineering and management skills. Everyone who knew Shea considered him to be a brilliant engineer, and his time as manager at ASPO only served to solidify a reputation that had been formed during his time on the Titan project. Of Shea's work in the mid-1960s, Murray and Cox write that "these were Joe Shea's glory days, and whatever the swirl of opinions about this gifted, enigmatic man, he was taking an effort that had been foundering and driving it forward." Shea's work also won wider attention, bringing him public recognition that approached that accorded to Wernher von Braun or Chris Kraft. Kraft had appeared on the cover of Time
in 1965; Time planned to offer Shea the same honor in February 1967, the month in which the first manned Apollo mission was scheduled to occur.
in the cabin, a potential fire hazard in the pure-oxygen atmosphere of the spacecraft, if there were to be a spark. As Shea later recounted:
Although the spacecraft passed its review, the crew finished the meeting by presenting Joe Shea with a picture of the three of them seated around a model of the capsule, heads bowed in prayer. The inscription was simple:
On January 25, 1967, the Apollo 1
crew began a series of countdown tests in the spacecraft on the pad at Kennedy Space Center
. Although Shea had ordered his staff to direct North American to take action on the issue of flammable materials in the cabin, he had not supervised the issue directly, and little if any action had been taken. During pad testing, the spacecraft suffered a number of technical problems, including broken and static-filled communications. Wally Schirra
, the backup commander for the mission, suggested to Shea that he should go through the countdown test in the spacecraft with the crew in order to experience first-hand the issues that they were facing. Although Shea seriously considered the idea, it proved to be unworkable because of the difficulties of hooking up a fourth communications loop for Shea. The hatch would have to be left open in order to run the extra wires out, and leaving the hatch open would make it impossible to run the emergency egress test that had been scheduled for the end of the day on the 27th. As Shea later told the press, joining the crew for the test "would have been highly irregular".
The final countdown test took place on January 27. While Shea was in Florida for the beginning of the test, he decided to leave before it concluded. He arrived back at his office in Houston at about 5:30 p.m. CST
. At 5:31 p.m. CST (6:31 p.m. EST) a massive fire broke out in the Apollo command module. Unable to escape, the three astronauts inside the spacecraftGus Grissom
, Ed White
and Roger Chaffeewere killed.
and George Low
, Shea helped to determine the individuals who would be on the NASA review board looking into the causes of the fire. Additionally, he persuaded George Mueller, head of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, to allow him to act as Mueller's deputy in Florida, supervising the progress of the investigation.
Named to the advisory group chosen to support the review board, Shea threw himself into the investigation, working eighty-hour weeks. Although the precise source of ignition was never found, it soon became clear that an electrical short somewhere in the command module had started the fire, probably sparked by a chafed wire. What was less clear was where to apportion responsibility. NASA engineers tended to point to what they saw as shoddy workmanship by North American Aviation. By contrast, North American executives blamed NASA management for its decision over their objections to pressurize the command module with pure oxygen to a pressure far in excess of that needed in space, in which almost any materialincluding Velcro, with which the cabin was filledwould instantly burst into flames if exposed to a spark. Whatever the precise distribution of responsibility, Joseph Shea remained haunted by the feeling that he, personally, was responsible for the deaths of three astronauts. For years after the fire, he displayed the portrait given to him by the Apollo 1 crew in the front hallway of his own home.
in order to help him cope. Shea was not the only NASA employee who found the aftermath of the fire difficult to handle: Robert Seamans wrote that "key people from Houston would fly up to Washington to testify and literally sob all the way on the plane", and a man who worked under Shea suffered a nervous breakdown and was reportedly taken to a mental hospital in a straitjacket
. A few weeks after the fire, Shea's colleagues began to notice that he too was behaving erratically. Chris Kraft, whose father had suffered from schizophrenia
, later related Shea's behavior in one meeting:
NASA administrator James Webb became increasingly worried about Shea's mental state. Specifically, he was concerned that Shea might not be able to deal with the hostile questioning that he would receive from the congressional inquiry into the Apollo 1 fire. Senator Walter Mondale
had accused NASA engineers of "criminal negligence
" with regard to the design and construction of the Apollo command module, and it was reliably expected that Shea would be in the firing line. In March, Webb sent Robert Seamans and Charles Berry, NASA's head physician, to speak with Shea and ask him to take an extended voluntary leave of absence
. This would, they hoped, protect him from being called to testify. A press release was already prepared, but Shea refused, threatening to resign rather than take leave. As a compromise, he agreed to meet with a psychiatrist and to abide by an independent assessment of his psychological fitness. Yet this approach to removing Shea from his position was also unsuccessful. As one of his friends later recounted:
, where he would serve as George Mueller's deputy at the Office of Manned Space Flight. He was replaced as chief of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office by George Low
. While Shea had already acted as Mueller's de facto deputy in Florida during the investigation, the reality of this permanent posting was very different. When Shea's reassignment was announced, one of his friends gave an anonymous interview to Time
magazine in which he said that "if Joe stays in Washington, it'll be a promotion. If he leaves in three or four months, you'll know this move amounted to being fired."
Shea himself accepted the re-assignment only reluctantly, feeling that "it was as if NASA was trying to hide me from the Congress for what I might have said". Once in the job, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with a posting that he considered to be a "non-job", later commenting that "I don't understand why, after everything I had done for the program ... I was only one that was removed. That's the end of the program for me." Only six months after the fire, and some two months after taking his new position, Shea left NASA in order to become a Vice President at the Polaroid Corporation
in Waltham, Massachusetts
. He had not been called to testify before the congressional inquiry into the fire.
in Lexington, Massachusetts
. He would remain with the company until his retirement in 1990, serving as Senior Vice President for Engineering from 1981 through 1990. After leaving Raytheon, Shea became an adjunct professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.
In February 1993, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin
appointed Shea to the chairmanship of a technical review board convened to oversee the redesign of the troubled International Space Station
project. However, Shea was hospitalized shortly after his appointment. By April he was well enough to attend a meeting where the design team formally presented the preliminary results of its studies, but his behavior at the meeting again called his capacities into question. As The Washington Post reported:
On the day following the meeting, Shea offered his resignation, becoming instead a special advisor to Daniel Goldin. NASA reported that he had resigned due to health reasons. However, The Scientist offered a different interpretation, quoting sources who speculated that the bluntness of his speech, including criticisms of Goldin, may have been controversial in NASA circles.
Shea died on February 14, 1999 at his home in Weston, Massachusetts
. He was survived by his wife Carol, six daughters, and one son.
in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, which portrays a dramatic confrontation as having taken place between Shea and Harrison Storms
at a meeting of the Apollo Review Board.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
aerospace engineer and NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
manager. Born in the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, he was educated at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, receiving a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Engineering Mechanics
Applied mechanics
Applied mechanics is a branch of the physical sciences and the practical application of mechanics. Applied mechanics examines the response of bodies or systems of bodies to external forces...
in 1955. After working for Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
on the radio inertial guidance system of the Titan I
Titan I
The Martin Marietta SM-68A/HGM-25A Titan I was the United States' first multistage ICBM . Incorporating the latest design technology when designed and manufactured, the Titan I provided an additional nuclear deterrent to complement the U.S. Air Force's SM-65 Atlas missile...
intercontinental ballistic missile
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
, he was hired by NASA in 1961. As Deputy Director of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, and later as head of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, Shea played a key role in shaping the course of the Apollo program
Project Apollo
The Apollo program was the spaceflight effort carried out by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration , that landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Apollo began in earnest after President John F...
, helping to lead NASA to the decision in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous is a key concept for human landing on the Moon and returning to Earth.In a LOR mission a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar module travel together into lunar orbit. The lunar module then independently descends to the lunar surface. After completion of the mission there, a...
and supporting "all up" testing of the Saturn V
Saturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
rocket. While sometimes causing controversy within the agency, Shea was remembered by his former colleague George Mueller
George Mueller (NASA)
George Mueller was Associate Administrator of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight from September 1963 until December 1969...
as "one of the greatest systems engineers
Systems engineering
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how complex engineering projects should be designed and managed over the life cycle of the project. Issues such as logistics, the coordination of different teams, and automatic control of machinery become more...
of our time".
Deeply involved in the investigation of the 1967 Apollo 1
Apollo 1
Apollo 1 was scheduled to be the first manned mission of the Apollo manned lunar landing program, with a target launch date of February 21, 1967. A cabin fire during a launch pad test on January 27 at Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral killed all three crew members: Command Pilot Virgil "Gus"...
fire, Shea suffered a nervous breakdown
Mental breakdown
Mental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
as a result of the stress that he suffered. He was removed from his position and left NASA shortly afterwards. From 1968 until 1990 he worked as a senior manager at Raytheon
Raytheon
Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
in Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
, and thereafter became an adjunct professor of aeronautics
Aeronautics
Aeronautics is the science involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of airflight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft and rocketry within the atmosphere...
and astronautics
Astronautics
Astronautics, and related astronautical engineering, is the theory and practice of navigation beyond the Earth's atmosphere. In other words, it is the science and technology of space flight....
at MIT. While Shea served as a consultant for NASA on the redesign of the International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
in 1993, he was forced to resign from the position due to health issues.
Early life and education
Shea was born and grew up in the BronxThe Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, the eldest son in a working-class Irish
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
family. His father worked as a mechanic on the New York subways. As a child, Shea had no interest in engineering; he was a good runner and hoped to become a professional athlete. He attended a Catholic high school
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
and graduated when he was only sixteen.
On graduating in 1943, Shea enlisted in the Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
and enrolled in a program that would put him through college. He began his studies at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, later moving to MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and finally to the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, where he would remain until he earned his doctorate in 1955. In 1946, he was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. Shea went on to earn a MSc
Master of Science
A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...
(1950) and a Ph.D. (1955) in Engineering Mechanics from the University of Michigan. While obtaining his doctorate, Shea found the time to teach at the university and to hold down a job at Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
.
Systems engineer
After receiving his doctorate, Shea took a position at Bell Labs in Whippany, New JerseyWhippany, New Jersey
Whippany is an unincorporated area located within Hanover Township in Morris County, New Jersey. Whippany's name is derived from the Whippanong Native Americans, a tribe that once inhabited the area...
. There he first worked as systems engineer on the radio guidance system
Guidance system
A guidance system is a device or group of devices used to navigate a ship, aircraft, missile, rocket, satellite, or other craft. Typically, this refers to a system that navigates without direct or continuous human control...
of the Titan I
Titan I
The Martin Marietta SM-68A/HGM-25A Titan I was the United States' first multistage ICBM . Incorporating the latest design technology when designed and manufactured, the Titan I provided an additional nuclear deterrent to complement the U.S. Air Force's SM-65 Atlas missile...
intercontinental ballistic missile
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
(ICBM) and then as the development and program manager on the inertial guidance system of the Titan II ICBM. Shea's specialty was systems engineering
Systems engineering
Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how complex engineering projects should be designed and managed over the life cycle of the project. Issues such as logistics, the coordination of different teams, and automatic control of machinery become more...
, a new type of engineering developed in the 1950s that focused on the management
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
and integration of large-scale projects, turning the work of engineer
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
s and contractors
Independent contractor
An independent contractor is a natural person, business, or corporation that provides goods or services to another entity under terms specified in a contract or within a verbal agreement. Unlike an employee, an independent contractor does not work regularly for an employer but works as and when...
into one functioning whole. He played a significant role in the Titan I project; as George Mueller
George Mueller (NASA)
George Mueller was Associate Administrator of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight from September 1963 until December 1969...
writes, "[H]e contributed a considerable amount of engineering innovation and project management
Project management
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end , undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value...
skill and was directly responsible for the successful development of this pioneering guidance system
Guidance system
A guidance system is a device or group of devices used to navigate a ship, aircraft, missile, rocket, satellite, or other craft. Typically, this refers to a system that navigates without direct or continuous human control...
." In addition to Shea's technical abilities, it quickly became obvious that he was also an excellent manager of people. Known for his quick intellect, he also endeared himself to his subordinates through small eccentricities such as his fondness for bad pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
s and habit of wearing red socks to important meetings. During the critical days of the Titan project Shea moved into the plant, sleeping on a cot in his office so as to be available at all hours if he was needed.
Having brought in the project on time and on budget, Shea established a reputation in the aerospace community. In 1961 he was offered and accepted a position with Space Technology Laboratories, a division of TRW
TRW
TRW Inc. was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, automotive, and credit reporting. It was a pioneer in multiple fields including electronic components, integrated circuits, computers, software and systems engineering. TRW built many spacecraft,...
Inc., where he continued to work on ballistic missile
Ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
systems.
NASA career
In December 1961, NASA invited Shea to interview for the position of deputy director of the Office of Manned Space FlightHuman spaceflight
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with humans on the spacecraft. When a spacecraft is manned, it can be piloted directly, as opposed to machine or robotic space probes and remotely-controlled satellites....
(OMSF). Brainerd Holmes, the director of the OMSF, had been searching for a deputy who could offer expertise in systems engineering, someone with the technical abilities to supervise the Apollo program as a whole. Shea was recommended by one of Holmes' advisors, who had worked with him at Bell Labs. Although Shea had worked at Space Technology Labs for less than a year, he was captivated by the challenge offered by the NASA position. "I could see they needed good people in the space program," he later said, "and I was kind of cocky in those days."
Lunar orbit rendezvous
When Shea was hired by NASA, President John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
's commitment to landing men on the moon
Moon landing
A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...
was still only seven months old, and many of the major decisions that shaped the Apollo program
Project Apollo
The Apollo program was the spaceflight effort carried out by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration , that landed the first humans on Earth's Moon. Conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Apollo began in earnest after President John F...
were yet to be made. Foremost among these the mode that NASA would use to land on the moon. When Shea first began to consider the issue in 1962, most NASA engineers and managersincluding Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
, the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center
Marshall Space Flight Center
The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. The largest center of NASA, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program...
favored either an approach called direct ascent
Direct ascent
Direct ascent was a proposed method for a mission to the Moon. In the United States, direct ascent proposed using the enormous Nova rocket to launch a spacecraft directly to the Moon, where it would land tail-first and then launch off the Moon back to Earth...
, where the Apollo spacecraft would land on the moon and return to the earth as one unit, or earth orbit rendezvous
Earth orbit rendezvous
Earth orbit rendezvous is a type of space rendezvous and a spaceflight methodology most notable for enabling round trip human missions to the moon...
, where the spacecraft would be assembled while still in orbit around the earth. However, dissenters such as John Houbolt
John Houbolt
John Cornelius Houbolt is a retired aerospace engineer. He is generally credited with having effectively promoted the lunar mission mode called Lunar Orbit Rendezvous or LOR. This flight path was first endorsed by Wernher von Braun in June 1961 and was chosen for Apollo program in early 1962...
, a Langley
Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...
engineer, favored an approach that was then considered to be more risky. This was lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous
Lunar orbit rendezvous is a key concept for human landing on the Moon and returning to Earth.In a LOR mission a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar module travel together into lunar orbit. The lunar module then independently descends to the lunar surface. After completion of the mission there, a...
, in which the landing on the moon would be accomplished using two spacecraft: a command module that remained in orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
around the moon, and a lunar module that descended to the moon and then returned to dock with the command module while in lunar orbit.
Robert Seamans
Robert Channing Seamans, Jr. was a NASA Deputy Administrator and MIT professor.-Birth and education:He was born in Salem, Massachusetts to Pauline and Robert Seamans. His great-great-grandfather was Otis Tufts...
, the deputy administrator of NASA. As Shea remembered, "Seamans gave a copy of Houbolt's letter to Brainerd Holmes [the director of OMSF]. Holmes put the letter on my desk and said: Figure it out." Shea became involved in the lunar orbit rendezvous decision as a result of this letter. While he began with a mild preference for earth orbit rendezvous, Shea "prided himself", according to space historians Murray and Cox, "on going wherever the data took him". In this case, the data took him to NASA's Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center
Langley Research Center is the oldest of NASA's field centers, located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It directly borders Poquoson, Virginia and Langley Air Force Base...
in Hampton, Virginia
Hampton, Virginia
Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts...
, where he met with John Houbolt and with the Space Task Group
Space Task Group
The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with superintending America's manned spaceflight programs. It was headed by Robert Gilruth andbased at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After President John F...
, and became convinced that LOR was an option worth considering.
Shea's task now became to shepherd NASA to a firm decision on the issue. This task was complicated by the fact that he had to build consensus between NASA's different centersmost notably the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
headed by Robert Gilruth, and the Marshall Space Flight Center
Marshall Space Flight Center
The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. The largest center of NASA, MSFC's first mission was developing the Saturn launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program...
in Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census....
, headed by Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
. Relations between the centers were not good, and it was a major milestone in the progress of the Apollo program when von Braun and his team finally came to accept the superiority of the LOR concept. NASA announced its decision at a press conference on July 11, 1962, only six months after Shea had joined NASA. Space historian James Hansen concludes that Shea "played a major role in supporting Houbolt's ideas and making the... decision in favor of LOR", while his former colleague George Mueller writes that "it is a tribute to Joe's logic and leadership that he was able to build a consensus within the centers at a time when they were autonomous."
During his time at the OMSF, Shea helped to resolve many of the other inevitable engineering debates and conflicts that cropped up during the development of the Apollo spacecraft. In May 1963, he formed a Panel Review Board, bringing together representatives of the many committees that aimed to coordinate work between NASA centers. Under Shea's leadership, this coordination became far more efficient.
Program manager
In October 1963, Shea became the new manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office (ASPO) in Houston. Although technically a demotion, this new position gave Shea the responsibility for managing the design and construction of the Apollo command and lunar modules. Of particular concern to Shea was the performance of North American AviationNorth American Aviation
North American Aviation was a major US aerospace manufacturer, responsible for a number of historic aircraft, including the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, and the XB-70, as well as Apollo Command and Service...
, the contractor responsible for the command module. As he later recounted:
I do not have a high opinion of North American and their motives in the early days. Their first program manager was a first-class jerk.... There were spots of good guys, but it was just an ineffective organization. They had no discipline, no concept of change control.
It was Shea's responsibility to bring that engineering discipline to North American and to NASA's management of its contractors. His systems management experience served him well in his new post. In the coming years, any change to the design of the Apollo spacecraft would have to receive its final approval from Joe Shea. He kept control of the program using a management tool that he devised for himself—a looseleaf notebook, more than a hundred pages in length, that would be put together for him every week summarizing all of the important developments that had taken place and decisions that needed to be made. Presented with the notebook on Thursday evenings, Shea would study and annotate it over the weekend and return to work with new questions instructions, and decisions. This idiosyncratic tool allowed him to keep tabs on a complex and ever-expanding program.
Shea's relationship with the engineers at North American was a difficult one. While Shea blamed North American's management for the continuing difficulties in the development of the command module, project leader Harrison Storms
Harrison Storms
Harrison Allen Storms Jr. , nicknamed Stormy, was an American aeronautical engineer best known for his role in managing the design and construction of the command module for the Apollo program.-Early life and career:...
felt that NASA itself was far from blameless. It had delayed in making key design decisions, and persisted in making significant changes to the design once construction had begun. While Shea did his part in attempting to control the change requests, Storms felt that he did not understand or sympathize with the inevitable problems involved in the day-to-day work of manufacturing.
The friction between Shea and Marshall, which had begun when Shea was at OMSF, continued after he moved to his new position. He became deeply involved in supporting George Mueller's effort to impose the idea of "all up" testing of the Saturn V
Saturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
rocket on the unwilling engineers at Marshall. Von Braun's approach to engineering was a conservative one, emphasizing the incremental testing of components. But the tight schedule of the Apollo program didn't allow for this slow and careful process. What Mueller and Shea proposed was to test the Saturn V as one unit on its very first flight, and Marshall only reluctantly came to accept this approach in late 1963. When later asked how he and Mueller had managed to sell the idea to von Braun, Shea responded that "we just told him that's the way it's going to be, finally."
Shea's role in resolving differences within NASA, and between NASA and its contractors, placed him in a position where criticism was inevitable. However, even Shea's critics could not help but respect his engineering and management skills. Everyone who knew Shea considered him to be a brilliant engineer, and his time as manager at ASPO only served to solidify a reputation that had been formed during his time on the Titan project. Of Shea's work in the mid-1960s, Murray and Cox write that "these were Joe Shea's glory days, and whatever the swirl of opinions about this gifted, enigmatic man, he was taking an effort that had been foundering and driving it forward." Shea's work also won wider attention, bringing him public recognition that approached that accorded to Wernher von Braun or Chris Kraft. Kraft had appeared on the cover of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
in 1965; Time planned to offer Shea the same honor in February 1967, the month in which the first manned Apollo mission was scheduled to occur.
Background
Problems with the Apollo command module continued through the testing phase. The review meeting for the first spacecraft intended for a manned mission took place on August 19, 1966. One issue of concern was the amount of VelcroVelcro
Velcro is the brand name of the first commercially marketed fabric hook-and-loop fastener, invented in 1948 by the Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral...
in the cabin, a potential fire hazard in the pure-oxygen atmosphere of the spacecraft, if there were to be a spark. As Shea later recounted:
And so the issue was brought up at the acceptance of the spacecraft, a long drawn-out discussion. I got a little annoyed, and I said, "Look, there's no way there's going to be a fire in that spacecraft unless there's a spark or the astronauts bring cigarettes aboard. We're not going to let them smoke." Well, I then issued orders at that meeting, "Go clean up the spacecraft. Be sure that all the fire rules are obeyed."
Although the spacecraft passed its review, the crew finished the meeting by presenting Joe Shea with a picture of the three of them seated around a model of the capsule, heads bowed in prayer. The inscription was simple:
It isn't that we don't trust you, Joe, but this time we've decided to go over your head."
Apollo 1
Apollo 1 was scheduled to be the first manned mission of the Apollo manned lunar landing program, with a target launch date of February 21, 1967. A cabin fire during a launch pad test on January 27 at Launch Pad 34 at Cape Canaveral killed all three crew members: Command Pilot Virgil "Gus"...
crew began a series of countdown tests in the spacecraft on the pad at Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...
. Although Shea had ordered his staff to direct North American to take action on the issue of flammable materials in the cabin, he had not supervised the issue directly, and little if any action had been taken. During pad testing, the spacecraft suffered a number of technical problems, including broken and static-filled communications. Wally Schirra
Wally Schirra
Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. was an American test pilot, United States Navy officer, and one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury, America's effort to put humans in space. He is the only person to fly in all of America's first three space programs...
, the backup commander for the mission, suggested to Shea that he should go through the countdown test in the spacecraft with the crew in order to experience first-hand the issues that they were facing. Although Shea seriously considered the idea, it proved to be unworkable because of the difficulties of hooking up a fourth communications loop for Shea. The hatch would have to be left open in order to run the extra wires out, and leaving the hatch open would make it impossible to run the emergency egress test that had been scheduled for the end of the day on the 27th. As Shea later told the press, joining the crew for the test "would have been highly irregular".
The final countdown test took place on January 27. While Shea was in Florida for the beginning of the test, he decided to leave before it concluded. He arrived back at his office in Houston at about 5:30 p.m. CST
Central Time zone
In North America, the Central Time Zone refers to national time zones which observe standard time by subtracting six hours from UTC , and daylight saving, or summer time by subtracting five hours...
. At 5:31 p.m. CST (6:31 p.m. EST) a massive fire broke out in the Apollo command module. Unable to escape, the three astronauts inside the spacecraftGus Grissom
Gus Grissom
Virgil Ivan Grissom , , better known as Gus Grissom, was one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and a United States Air Force pilot...
, Ed White
Edward Higgins White
Edward Higgins White, II was an engineer, United States Air Force officer and NASA astronaut. On June 3, 1965, he became the first American to "walk" in space. White died along with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch test for the first manned Apollo mission at...
and Roger Chaffeewere killed.
Investigation
Immediately after the fire, Shea and his ASPO colleagues at Houston boarded a NASA plane to the Kennedy Space Center. They landed at about 1:00 a.m., only five hours after the fire had broken out. At a meeting that morning with Robert Gilruth, George MuellerGeorge Mueller (NASA)
George Mueller was Associate Administrator of the NASA Office of Manned Space Flight from September 1963 until December 1969...
and George Low
George Low
George Michael Low, born George Wilhelm Low was a NASA administrator and 14th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was born near Vienna, Austria to Artur and Gertrude Burger Low, small business people in Austria...
, Shea helped to determine the individuals who would be on the NASA review board looking into the causes of the fire. Additionally, he persuaded George Mueller, head of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, to allow him to act as Mueller's deputy in Florida, supervising the progress of the investigation.
Breakdown
The pressure of the investigation took a psychological toll on Shea. He had trouble sleeping and began to resort to barbiturates and alcoholAlcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
in order to help him cope. Shea was not the only NASA employee who found the aftermath of the fire difficult to handle: Robert Seamans wrote that "key people from Houston would fly up to Washington to testify and literally sob all the way on the plane", and a man who worked under Shea suffered a nervous breakdown and was reportedly taken to a mental hospital in a straitjacket
Straitjacket
A straitjacket is a garment shaped like a jacket with overlong sleeves and is typically used to restrain a person who may otherwise cause harm to themselves or others. Once the arms are inserted into the straitjacket's sleeves, they are then crossed across the chest...
. A few weeks after the fire, Shea's colleagues began to notice that he too was behaving erratically. Chris Kraft, whose father had suffered from schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, later related Shea's behavior in one meeting:
Joe Shea got up and started calmly with a report on the state of the investigation. But within a minute, he was rambling, and in another thirty seconds, he was incoherent. I looked at him and saw my father, in the grip of dementia praecoxDementia praecoxDementia praecox refers to a chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration, usually beginning in the late teens or early adulthood. It is a term first used in 1891 in this Latin form by Arnold Pick , a professor of psychiatry at the German branch of...
. It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time.
NASA administrator James Webb became increasingly worried about Shea's mental state. Specifically, he was concerned that Shea might not be able to deal with the hostile questioning that he would receive from the congressional inquiry into the Apollo 1 fire. Senator Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
had accused NASA engineers of "criminal negligence
Criminal negligence
In the criminal law, criminal negligence is one of the three general classes of mens rea element required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is defined as an act that is:-Concept:...
" with regard to the design and construction of the Apollo command module, and it was reliably expected that Shea would be in the firing line. In March, Webb sent Robert Seamans and Charles Berry, NASA's head physician, to speak with Shea and ask him to take an extended voluntary leave of absence
Leave of absence
Leave of absence is a term used to describe a period of time that one is to be away from his/her primary job, while maintaining the status of employee...
. This would, they hoped, protect him from being called to testify. A press release was already prepared, but Shea refused, threatening to resign rather than take leave. As a compromise, he agreed to meet with a psychiatrist and to abide by an independent assessment of his psychological fitness. Yet this approach to removing Shea from his position was also unsuccessful. As one of his friends later recounted:
The psychiatrists came back saying, 'He's so smart, he's so intelligent!' Here Joe was, ready to kill himself, but he could still outsmart the psychiatrists.
Reassignment
Finally Shea's superiors were forced to take a more direct approach. On April 7 it was announced that Shea would be moving to NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where he would serve as George Mueller's deputy at the Office of Manned Space Flight. He was replaced as chief of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office by George Low
George Low
George Michael Low, born George Wilhelm Low was a NASA administrator and 14th President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He was born near Vienna, Austria to Artur and Gertrude Burger Low, small business people in Austria...
. While Shea had already acted as Mueller's de facto deputy in Florida during the investigation, the reality of this permanent posting was very different. When Shea's reassignment was announced, one of his friends gave an anonymous interview to Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine in which he said that "if Joe stays in Washington, it'll be a promotion. If he leaves in three or four months, you'll know this move amounted to being fired."
Shea himself accepted the re-assignment only reluctantly, feeling that "it was as if NASA was trying to hide me from the Congress for what I might have said". Once in the job, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with a posting that he considered to be a "non-job", later commenting that "I don't understand why, after everything I had done for the program ... I was only one that was removed. That's the end of the program for me." Only six months after the fire, and some two months after taking his new position, Shea left NASA in order to become a Vice President at the Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February...
in Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...
. He had not been called to testify before the congressional inquiry into the fire.
Post-NASA career
In 1968, Shea took a position at RaytheonRaytheon
Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
in Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
. He would remain with the company until his retirement in 1990, serving as Senior Vice President for Engineering from 1981 through 1990. After leaving Raytheon, Shea became an adjunct professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT.
In February 1993, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin
Daniel Goldin
Daniel Saul Goldin served as the 9th and longest-tenured Administrator of NASA from April 1, 1992, to November 17, 2001. He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush and also served under President William Jefferson Clinton and George W...
appointed Shea to the chairmanship of a technical review board convened to oversee the redesign of the troubled International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
project. However, Shea was hospitalized shortly after his appointment. By April he was well enough to attend a meeting where the design team formally presented the preliminary results of its studies, but his behavior at the meeting again called his capacities into question. As The Washington Post reported:
Shea made a rambling, sometimes barely audible two-hour presentation that left many of those present speculating about his ability to do the job. A longtime friend said, "That's not the real Joe Shea. He is normally incisive and well-organized."
On the day following the meeting, Shea offered his resignation, becoming instead a special advisor to Daniel Goldin. NASA reported that he had resigned due to health reasons. However, The Scientist offered a different interpretation, quoting sources who speculated that the bluntness of his speech, including criticisms of Goldin, may have been controversial in NASA circles.
Shea died on February 14, 1999 at his home in Weston, Massachusetts
Weston, Massachusetts
Weston is a suburb of Boston located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States in the Boston metro area. The population of Weston, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, is 11,261....
. He was survived by his wife Carol, six daughters, and one son.
In film and fiction
Shea was played by Kevin PollakKevin Pollak
Kevin Elliot Pollak is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20...
in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, which portrays a dramatic confrontation as having taken place between Shea and Harrison Storms
Harrison Storms
Harrison Allen Storms Jr. , nicknamed Stormy, was an American aeronautical engineer best known for his role in managing the design and construction of the command module for the Apollo program.-Early life and career:...
at a meeting of the Apollo Review Board.
Further reading
- Sawyer, Kathy. "NASA Picks Manager to Cut Expenditures on Space Station," The Washington Post, February 27, 1993, p. A2.