who contributed to the designs for almost all of NASA's crewed spacecraft, covering the Mercury project (1961–3) and the Apollo project (1961–72) as well as the space shuttle. He also devised the Little Joe rocket. He joined the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory (later the Langley Research Center), Virginia, in 1946, where he conducted research on the Mercury heat shield. Faget joined NASA in 1958 and became director for engineering and development at the Johnson Space Center. He left NASA in 1981 and founded Space Industries Inc in 1982.