John Yardley; Key Figure in Space Programs

John Finley Yardley, who helped design the craft that put the first American into space and later managed the space shuttle program, has died. He was 76.

The retired McDonnell Douglas Corp. executive died Tuesday of complications from cancer at his home near St. Louis.

“He was one of the real pioneers of the space program. No one was more dedicated,” said John Glenn, the former astronaut and retired U.S. senator from Ohio.

Yardley was project engineer for the design of the one-man Mercury capsule, which carried Alan Shepard into suborbital flight in 1961 as the first American in space.

“I never felt such a thrill in my life as that flight of Shepard’s,” Yardley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1974.

He later oversaw the two-seat Gemini flights, which let American astronauts spend more time in orbit and led to the moon landings. He was also vice president for the Skylab program and vice president and general manager of the space shuttle program at McDonnell Douglas.

“John Yardley was as responsible as any individual for getting the space shuttle program off the ground,” said Daniel S. Goldin, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “Two decades later, John’s legacy lives on with each successful space shuttle mission.”

Yardley was born in St. Louis, where his father played outfield for the old St. Louis Browns organization. But the youth was more intrigued by building model airplanes.

After serving in the Navy in World War II, he earned degrees in aeronautical and applied engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

Yardley joined the old McDonnell Aircraft Co. in St. Louis as a stress analyst in 1946. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, aeronautical engineers like Yardley began working on spacecraft.

After the Mercury program, Yardley was launch operations manager at Cape Canaveral, Fla., until 1964, when he became technical director for Gemini, built by McDonnell.

In 1974, Yardley became NASA’s associate administrator in charge of manned space flight. He returned to McDonnell Douglas in 1981 and retired as senior vice president in 1989.

Yardley is survived by his wife, Phyllis, four daughters and a son, nine grandchildren and a great grandchild.