About Jesco von Puttkamer
Jesco Hans Heinrich Max Freiherr von Puttkamer (22 September 1933 – 27 December 2012) was a German-American aerospace engineer, senior manager at NASA, and a pulp science fiction writer. He was an advocate of human space exploration, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). While at NASA, he served as the program manager in charge of long-range planning of deep space crewed activities (flights beyond Earth orbit). He was regarded as an expert on the Russian space program. Puttkamer assisted with daily on-orbit operations at NASA from 2009 until 2012. He was given the nickname Jessie by DeForest Kelley, whom Puttkammer called Dee. He died of a sudden flu-like illness on 27 December 2012. In 1995, Puttkamer was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Philosophy by Saarland University for his pioneering contributions to the understanding of space flight. According to family tradition, each firstborn Puttkamer son is given the forename Jesco. Asteroid 266725 Vonputtkamer, discovered by Matthias Busch and Rainer Kresken at the ESA Optical Ground Station in 2009, was named in his honor.
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