George Jeffs
Space pioneer George Jeffs (1925-2019) gave HRH Elizabeth II a royal tour of the Space Shuttle. Jeffs led the North American and Rockwell space divisions during Apollo 11 and 13 and development of the space shuttle fleet. Ad Astra ? pic.twitter.com/ya1xzYW3e3
— Boeing Space (@BoeingSpace) June 1, 2019
Jeffs was listed as the author of a booklet put out by Rockwell International about the Shuttle that somehow came to me in the late 70s via my early queries by mail. It was promotional but it was also informational, one of the earliest bricks that inspired me to work in the Shuttle program.
Saddest aspect of that booklet is the section at the end about potential shuttle evolved upgrades (liquid side boosters, passenger module for the payload bay, side-mount shuttle-C designs, ET aft extra-boost module) that never got much (if at all) further than preliminary concepts. While it’s a whole bunch of what-if history (and all such what-if history is as much science fiction as it is wishful regrets), it is difficult to not ponder how history might have otherwise unfolded, even slightly so, if only…
I regret never having had the chance to interact with him directly.