Glen P. Wilson

Who was Glen P. Wilson?

Glen Parten Wilson Jr. worked on the Senate space and astronautics committee, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was executive director emeritus of the National Space Society, a space advocacy group.

Born in Waco, TX and raised in Houston, he was an aviation electronics technician in the Navy during World War II and also worked for Lockheed Aircraft Co. in Burbank, Calif.

He was an aeronautical engineering graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he also received his master's degree and doctorate in psychology.

Dr. Wilson was working in his native Texas when he was summoned in 1955 with his wife to join the Washington office of then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, the majority leader. Dr. Wilson was a staff assistant, and his wife was a secretary, and they shared mutual friends with Johnson.

A Johnson protégé, Dr. Wilson soon joined the staff of the Senate's Special Committee on Space and Astronautics. His function initially was to interview specialists and analyze technical data so the committee had guidelines as it wrote the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 and created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.