Portal:Space exploration/Biography/Week 27 2007

Maxime "Max" A. Faget (August 26, 1921 – October 9, 2004) was an American engineer. He was the designer of the Mercury capsule, as well as contributing to the later NASA Gemini and Apollo spacecraft and also the Space Shuttle.

During his NASA career, he contributed to the design of all of NASA's manned spacecraft to date. He held patents on the Mercury capsule and on the escape tower system used on Apollo, which led to the escape system used on Soyuz spacecraft that saved the lives of 3 astronauts in a launch pad fire.

Faget also filed a patent for a space shuttle vehicle design in 1972. Faget's design was a fully reusable two-stage winged craft with an orbiter much smaller than the orbiter actually built for the Space Transportation System (STS).

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