Byron Gordon MacNabb; Directed Mercury Program Launches

Byron Gordon MacNabb, 87, who helped launch the first American astronauts to orbit the Earth. MacNabb directed the formation of the Atlas rocket-based intercontinental ballistic missile program, and was responsible for more than 175 Atlas flights. His launches of ICBM and Mercury program rockets carried the first four American astronauts to orbit the Earth: John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra and Gordon Cooper. Programs developed under his direction sent the first payload to the moon and accomplished the first fly-bys of Venus and Mars and the first soft landing on the moon. MacNabb helped develop the atomic bomb and participated in the first test of the hydrogen bomb. He later managed and consulted on space-related programs for General Electric from 1965 to 1975 and later became a consultant on energy and environmental issues. On Monday in Cheyenne, Wyo.