D. Brainerd Holmes

• 1. Introduction

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  D. Brainerd Holmes was the man John F. Kennedy called on to put an American on the moon. In September 1961, Holmes stepped into one of the most pressure-filled jobs in the country: directing NASA's crewed spaceflight program. Cold War anxiety was running high. The Soviets had launched Sputnik in October 1957, and Kennedy had publicly pledged that before the decade was out, the United States would land a man on the moon and bring him safely home. Holmes was hired to get it done.

  What kind of person takes on a mission like that? And what happens when the man chosen to lead the most ambitious technological undertaking in history finds himself in a battle over authority with the people above him? Those are the questions this documentary will explore.

• 2. An Engineer's Rise

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  Holmes studied electrical engineering at Cornell University, which gave him the technical foundation for a career that would pass through some of the most consequential defense projects of the twentieth century. He began at Bell Labs and Western Electric before moving to RCA, where his work shifted decisively toward military contracting.

  At RCA, Holmes helped develop the Talos antiaircraft missile and contributed to the electronic systems at the heart of the Atlas missile. His most visible project was the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, a network designed to detect incoming Soviet missiles. That work put Holmes in front of decision-makers in government circles, and his reputation for integrating complex systems caught the attention of RCA's own top leadership.

  Elmer Engstrom, the president of RCA, described what set Holmes apart in terms that stuck: "The problem with systems engineering is to find people with a special knack for marrying men, machines, tactics and everything else into one large system. We could see right away that Holmes had the knack." That assessment would prove prophetic.

• 3. Two Years at NASA

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  Holmes arrived at NASA in September 1961 with an enormous mandate. During his tenure, he oversaw the Mercury program, the mission that put John Glenn into orbit on the first crewed US orbital spaceflight. He also directed planning for Project Gemini and the Apollo program, the two programs that would eventually carry astronauts to the moon.

  NASA official Robert R. Gilruth, who compiled a history of the agency during his own time there, wrote about how Holmes ran his leadership team. Gilruth had worked to convince Holmes that a lunar-orbit rendezvous was the right approach for the moon landing, and he credited Holmes's management style with keeping that debate productive. Holmes's team, Gilruth wrote, "argued out our different opinions" before any course was set. Gilruth's verdict was pointed: "A less skillful leader might have forced an early arbitrary decision that would have made the whole task of getting to the Moon virtually impossible."

  That deliberate, argument-driven approach was on display in Time magazine in 1962, when Holmes was quoted directly on what was at stake: "When a great nation is faced with a technological challenge, it has to accept or go backward. Space is the future of man, and the US must keep ahead in space."

• 4. The Limits of Authority

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  Holmes resigned from NASA in 1963. The departure was likely connected to tensions with NASA Administrator James E. Webb over the scope of Holmes's authority to shape and schedule the various facets of the space program. The exact nature of those disputes was not spelled out publicly, but the friction was significant enough that Holmes left before the programs he had structured reached the moon.

  His departure came less than two years after he arrived, in June 1963. He had been featured on the cover of Time magazine on the 10th of August, 1962, as part of the series titled "Reaching For The Moon." That cover image captured a moment of maximum visibility for Holmes. Within a year, he was gone from the agency.

• 5. Raytheon and the Patriot

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  Holmes moved from NASA into the executive ranks at Raytheon, the international defense contractor. He rose to the presidency of the company, and during his time there Raytheon developed the Patriot antiballistic missile system in the 1970s. Holmes is credited with helping shape several of Raytheon's missile programs.

  He also took on a leadership role at Beech Aircraft Corporation after Raytheon acquired that company in 1979, serving as its chairman. Holmes retired from Raytheon in 1986. In 1977, Raytheon had nominated him for membership in the National Academy of Engineering, where he was accepted into the Electronics section.

  Holmes died on the 11th of January, 2013, in a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, from complications of pneumonia. He had been living in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He was survived by his wife, Mary Margaret England Wilkes Holmes, two children from a previous marriage, and three stepchildren.