James E. Webb

Who was James E. Webb?

James Edwin Webb was an American government official who served as the second administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961 to October 7, 1968.

Webb oversaw NASA from the beginning of the Kennedy administration through the end of the Johnson administration, thus overseeing all the critical first manned launches in the Mercury through Gemini programs, until just before the first manned Apollo flight. He also dealt with the Apollo 1 fire.

In 2002, a planned space telescope, originally called the Next Generation Space Telescope, was renamed the James Webb Space Telescope as a tribute to Webb.