Lew Allen was the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. He started as a physicist, born in 1925, and rose rapidly in the ranks after he was assigned to Los Alamos in the 1950s. After leaving Los Alamos, he became director of special projects at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he became associated with Project Orion as its project administrator for the Advanced Research Projects Agency. He became good friends with Ted Taylor. After his Air Force career, he became the Director of JPL, during the Voyager program.
