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1972: NASA hell of a year (13)
Agena going big
Lee Sherer. had been named director of Dryden on October 11, 1971 but its tenure was quite short: new NASA administrator James Beggs, sworn early 1972, handpicked Sherer as the leader of the Agena space tug program, later renamed the Piloted Science Program.
Sherer was a visionary that recognized the Agena immense potential as early as 1972.
It was Sherer that negociated the selling of Thor Agena (Thorad) to Japan, giving that country access to the coming space station. A similar scenario happened with Canada.