An American aerospace engineer who served on the professional staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Council in the Executive Office of the President.
On 18 July 1963 he wrote a six-page memorandum, “Thoughts on the Space Alien Race Question”, to Robert F. Packard of the State Department, released in PURSUE Release 01. The memo sorts any hypothetical alien race into three types by its propulsion, chemical-rocket, nuclear-capable, and faster-than-light, and argues US policy would differ drastically for each. It is explicitly self-described as “miscellaneous thoughts”, marked only “Official Use Only”, and concludes that no policy existed, none could usefully be prepared, and that if contact ever happened policy “will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic”.
Connections
National Aeronautics and Space Council · PURSUE · Department of War