Wallace W. Withee

Wallace W. Withee has been active in the fields of design, flight test, and advanced studies of aircraft, missile spacecraft systems and energy systems from 1936 to 1981. In 1947 he became Assistant Project Engineer on the XP-92 project, forerunner of the delta-wing F-102, and in 1948 was assigned the management of the XP-92 (model 7002) flight test program at Edwards Air Force Base.

In April 1957 Mr. Withee became Assistant Chief Engineer of the Astronautics Division of General Dynamics Corporation. In this capacity he was responsible for planning and directing the static and flight testing of the Atlas program, including Project Mercury. From 1957 to 1961 he was responsible for the operation of the Atlas Test Bases at Cape Canaveral, Florida, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, Edwards Rocket Test Base, California, and Sycamore Canyon, California.

From 1961 to 1965 he was Vice President of Engineering for the Astronautics Division. In 1967 he was program director of Manned Space Systems for the Convair Division of General Dynamics and in 1968 was Director of Advanced Space Systems.

The photo on the right shows Mr Withee holding models of preliminary concepts of space stations for the future. The model in his left hand is a biology lab and the other is a solar astronomy module.