James Fletcher

James C. Fletcher was an American physicist and administrator who served two separate terms as NASA Administrator, from 1971 to 1977 and again from 1986 to 1989. During his first term he secured the approval and funding of the Space Shuttle program from the Nixon administration, shaping its design as a reusable spacecraft after Congress rejected more ambitious space station and Mars mission proposals, and he also oversaw the later Apollo missions, the Skylab space station and the Viking landings on Mars. He returned to lead NASA a second time at President Ronald Reagan's request in the aftermath of the January 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, tasked with implementing the safety reforms recommended by the Rogers Commission and restoring public and congressional confidence in the shuttle program before flights resumed in 1988. Before and between his NASA terms he served as president of the University of Utah and of the University of Pittsburgh, and he held a doctorate in physics from the California Institute of Technology.