page_title: James E. Webb
section_title: NASA
hierarchical_section_title: James E. Webb / NASA
caption_attribution_description: English: Distinguished service award and medal presented to James Webb, on display in the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina
context_page_description: James Edwin Webb was an American government official who served as the second appointed administrator of NASA from February 14, 1961, to October 7, 1968. Webb oversaw NASA from the beginning of the Kennedy administration through the end of the Johnson administration, thus overseeing all the critical first manned launches in the Mercury through Gemini programs, until just before the first crewed Apollo flight. He also dealt with the Apollo 1 fire.
  In 2002, the Next Generation Space Telescope was renamed the James Webb Space Telescope as a tribute to Webb.
context_section_description: On February 14, 1961, Webb accepted President John F. Kennedy's appointment as Administrator of NASA, taking the reins from interim director, Hugh L. Dryden, Deputy Administrator. Webb directed NASA's undertaking of the goal set by Kennedy of landing an American on the Moon before the end of the 1960s through the Apollo program.
  For seven years after Kennedy's May 25, 1961, announcement of the goal of a manned lunar landing until October 1968, Webb lobbied for support for NASA in Congress. As a longtime Washington insider and with the backing of President Lyndon B. Johnson, he was able to produce continued support and resources for Apollo.
  During his administration, NASA developed from a loose collection of research centers to a co-ordinated organization. Webb had a key role in creating the Manned Spacecraft Center, later the Johnson Space Center, in Houston. Despite the pressures to focus on the Apollo program, Webb ensured that NASA carried out a program of planetary exploration with the Mariner and Pioneer space programs.
  After the Apollo 1 accident in 1967, Webb told the media, "We've always known that something like this was going to happen sooner or later... Who would have thought that the first tragedy would be on the ground?" Webb went to Johnson and asked for NASA to be allowed to handle the accident investigation and to direct its recovery, according to a procedure that was established following the in-flight accident on Gemini 8. He promised to be truthful in assessing blame, even to himself and NASA management, as appropriate. The agency set out to discover the details of the tragedy, to correct problems, and to continue progress toward the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
  
  Webb reported the investigation board's findings to various congressional committees, and he took a personal blaming at nearly every meeting. Whether by happenstance or by design, Webb managed to deflect some of the backlash over the accident away from both NASA as an agency and from the Johnson administration. As a result, NASA's image and popular support were largely undamaged.
  Webb was a Democrat tied closely to Johnson, and since Johnson chose not to run for reelection, Webb decided to step down as administrator to allow the next president, Republican Richard Nixon, to choose his own administrator.
  Webb was informed by CIA sources in 1968 that the Soviet Union was developing its own heavy N1 rocket for a manned lunar mission, and he directed NASA to prepare Apollo 8 for a possible lunar orbital mission that year. At the time, Webb's assertions about the Soviet Union's abilities were doubted by some people, and the N-1 was dubbed "Webb's Giant". However, later revelations about the Soviet Moonshot, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have given support to Webb's conclusion. Webb left NASA in October 1968, just before the first manned flight in the Apollo program.
  In 1969, Webb was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Johnson. He is a 1976 recipient of the Langley Gold Medal from the Smithsonian Institution.
caption: NASA Distinguished Service Award/Medal, November 1, 1968
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