posted 04-13-2015 10:34 AM               

Philip Edgar Culbertson passed away in the early morning of April 4, 2015, after a long battle with complications of Alzheimer's disease. He had a long and illustrious career in the aerospace industry contributing in the fields of missile guidance systems, supersonic flight, and manned space flight.

...Phil's 11 years at General Dynamics involved engineering and technical management positions including the conversion of the Atlas missile into a manned booster for the Mercury program and as a deep space launch vehicle. He became the principal liaison to NASA, and in 1965 was offered and accepted a position at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, to begin work on the new Skylab program.

Over his 23 year career at NASA, Phil held a multitude of titles and responsibilities covering all of the manned mission programs from the lunar landings through the planning of the International Space Station. His positions were Director, Lunar Mission Studies (1965-1967); Director, Skylab Integration Program (1967-1969); Director, Advanced Manned Mission Program (1969-1972); Director, Mission & Payload Integration (1972-1976); Executive Director, President's Committee on Science and Technology (1976-1977); Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Transportation Systems (Technical) (1977-1979); Assistant for the Space Transportation System (1979-1981); Associate Deputy Administrator (1981-1984); Associate Administrator for Space Station (1984-1985); NASA General Manager (1985-1987); Associate Administrator for Policy and Planning (1987-1988). Phil was also integral in the planning of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975, and served as the NASA representative in the 1979 ASAT treaty negotiations.

Phil retired from NASA in 1988, and eventually he and [his wife] Shirley moved to Cocoa Beach, Florida. He kept busy in retirement by consulting in the aerospace industry and served as Senior Vice President of the External Tanks Corporation, which sought funding to create space stations out of spent space shuttle external tanks.