Posts: 40
From: California, USA
Registered: May 2015

posted 03-30-2017 01:04 AM               

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Max Faget is credited with designing the Mercury spacecraft and in particular, the "centered" reentry configuration of the heat shield. McDonnell Aircraft constructed the Mercury spacecraft. But did Faget design the instrumentation of the spacecraft as well or was that left to McDonnell Aircraft to design those elements?

And was this an isolated incident where the Director of Engineering of the Manned Spacecraft Center can claim credit for design of a spacecraft? For example, the Apollo spacecraft I believe was primarily designed by the contractor, North American.

I guess the question I am asking is can McDonnell Aircraft be considered a designer of the Mercury spacecraft or just the "fabricator/builder" of the spacecraft? And can North American Aviation be called the "designer and builder" of the Apollo CSM?

Posts: 1488
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: Mar 2010

Posts: 880
From: CA.
Registered: Jan 2011

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From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009

Posts: 7
From: Lancefield, Victoria Australia
Registered: May 2015

posted 04-04-2017 06:23 AM            

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quote:

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Originally posted by moorouge:
...look to Caldwell Johnson's input

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Those guys were joined at the hip, weren't they?

From memory, Murray and Bly-Cox cover this in their wonderful book. They tell the story that Faget would take the best information from the bidding contractors and design his very own spacecraft.