Thomas Jack Lee (1935 – February 24, 2019) was the sixth Director of the NASA

Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), located in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama (Huntsville postal address), is the U.S. government's civilian rocketry and spacecraft propulsion research center. As the largest NASA center, MSFC's first ...

in Huntsville, Alabama, from July 6, 1989 to January 6, 1994.

Early life

Prior to his appointment as Director of the Marshall Center, Lee had been Marshall's deputy director since December 1980, after seven years as manager of the Spacelab program at the Center. From July to September 1986 he was also acting director of the Center. In addition to his responsibilities as deputy director, Lee was manager of the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle Definition Office, NASA's effort to define and develop a heavy lift launch vehicle capable of meeting national requirements. Lee began his professional career in 1958 as an aeronautical research engineer with the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency at the

Redstone Arsenal Redstone Arsenal (RSA) is a United States Army post and a census-designated place (CDP) adjacent to Huntsville in Madison County, Alabama, United States and is part of the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. The Arsenal is a garrison f ...

. He transferred to the Marshall Center when it was formed in 1960 as a systems engineer with the Center's Centaur Resident Manager Office in San Diego. From 1963 to 1965 he was Resident Project Manager for the Pegasus Meteoroid Detection Satellite Project in Blandenburg, Maryland, and from 1965 to 1969 was chief of the Center's Saturn Program Resident Office at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From 1969 to 1973 he was assistant to the technical deputy director of the Marshall Center. He then became deputy manager and manager of the Sortie Lab Task Team, and continued as manager when that team became the Spacelab Program Office in 1974. As manager of the Spacelab Program Office he was responsible for NASA's work with the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

in the development of Spacelab, a multi-purpose reusable laboratory for Earth orbital science activities.

References

External links

NASA biography

Thomas J. Lee Collection, The University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections
1935 births 2019 deaths NASA people Directors of the Marshall Space Flight Center Systems engineers People from Randolph County, Alabama Deaths from cancer in Alabama Deaths from pancreatic cancer {{NASA-stub