Arnold Wolfe Frutkin (November 30, 1918 – September 1, 2020) was the Deputy Director of the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

international programs office between 1957 and 1978, and later, the associate administrator for external relations. He was the NASA Deputy Director for international affairs during the

Space Race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...

between the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Biography

Frutkin first started working for NASA when he was hired as deputy director for the U.S. National Committee during the

International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; ), also referred to as the third International Polar Year, was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War w ...

, July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. This title later changed to assistant administrator for international affairs in 1963. Frutkin was employed by NASA as deputy director of the international programs office during the

space race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...

between the

and the

. After retiring, Frutkin commented although he had always disliked the space race, he had nonetheless felt disappointed by the success of

Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...

. In 1970, Frutkin and

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In ...

held discussions with the Soviets that would later become the base for the ASTP. Frutkin wrote a letter asking the French space program to reaffirm their pledge not to launch commercial communications satellites under the

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly Intel-Sat, Intelsat) is a Luxembourgish-American multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons, Virginia, United States. Originally formed ...

project's agreement that no other communications satellites besides Intelsat would be launched for commercial purposes. France had requested that NASA launch a French satellite which they identified as a research instrument. NASA gave the project the go ahead, but later, some French officials started to claim that the satellite would be used for commercial purposes and the launch of the satellite was cancelled. Lebeau, an employee of the French space program, claimed that Frutkin had refused to launch the French satellite, a comment that resulted in Frutkin barring him from his office. Frutkin took a copy of the letter he wrote with him when he went to meetings in Europe, so as he could produce it when he was queried as to why he supposedly refused the French project. Frutkin believed that the USA had never lost the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

as the aim of the USA had been to prevent North Korea from taking over South Korea, in which they had been successful. This opinion went against what many of his colleagues at the time, including Thomas Paine, believed. Nonetheless, in 1973, Frutkin was awarded the

NASA Distinguished Service Medal The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award that can be bestowed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. The medal may be presented to any member of the federal government, including both milita ...

by Thomas Paine, and Frutkin commented that Paine had always been "wonderful" to him. In 1978 Frutkin was appointed as the associate administrator for external relations for NASA. He held this post until his retirement in 1979. Frutkin died in September 2020 at the age of 101.Arnold Wolfe Frutkin obituary
/ref>

References

1918 births 2020 deaths American men centenarians NASA people {{NASA-stub