He worked on everything from Mercury up to the shuttle program.
With a name like “Max Faget,” you can imagine how he must’ve been teased by the kids in school.
I wonder if the funerary arrangements involve cremation, followed by launching the cremains into space?
I wouldn’t be surprised. NASA has carried the cremains into space of people they’ve respected (Gene Roddenberry comes to mind).
Hell, for this guy, it’d be worth launching his entire body up into space.
Thanks for your work, Max.
Back then, I’m not sure the words were in place for him to be picked on.
“Godspeed” Max. Lord knows you sent plenty of our Astronauts with that word, and safely brought them back too. . .
Tripler
May you find your rest in the stars.
Everyone’s talking about how tough Chris Reeve was, but this guy served in the US Navy in WWII with the name “Maxime Faget?” That’s tough. You know when they weren’t calling him, “hey, faggot!” (which was in use by WWII) they were calling him Patty or Laverne.
With due respect to Mr. Faget, I have a problem calling people “Doctor” when they only have an honorary doctorate. All the news reports of his death refer to him as “Dr. Maxime A. Faget”. There seems to me to be no need to exaggerate the qualifications of a person of his vast achievement.
Also, his name was of French origin and was pronounced “Fa-zhay”. That may have deflected some of the joke potential.
Yeah, he wished. Poor ol’ Laverne.
Max Faget, who in the late 1950s designed the United States first manned spacecraft, died Saturday at his home in Houston, Texas. He was 83.
Quite an accomplishment, to say the least. And half the posts are about the guys “funny” last name.