Jack Francis Cully

Oct 18, 1913 - Oct 9, 1998

Jack Cully led an adventuresome life, working to put men on the moon and retracing Hannibal's trek through the Alps. Diagnosed with cancer in September, Cully died on Oct. 9 at his Albuquerque home. He would have been 85 on Sunday. A memorial service was held last weekend.

Cully was known as a hard working, intense but not overbearing executive, said Harry P. Smith of Colorado Springs, Colo., a longtime friend and former colleague. "He was a no-nonsense guy with very, very high integrity," Smith said Thursday. "The guy was interested in things and had a lot of both to his personality.' Born in South Bend, Ind., Cully graduated from Purdue University in 1938. with an electrical engineering degree.

He was an Air Force captain in World War II, working on a highly classified radio detecting and ranging project radar, said Martha, his wife of 55 years. "It was very secretive," she said. "He didn't dare talk about it. But in his sleep, he would dream about it and talk about it, using his hands like he was using dials." After the war, Cully took a job with the Atomic Energy Commission in Los Alamos and later was transferred to an Albuquerque office. became chief of the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office and managed a program that conducted research on nuclear rocketry.

It offered the advantage of using less fuel and propellant while providing the same thrust as a chemical rocket. But nuclear rockets have yet to make it into space, due to the success of chemical rockets. Cully also managed the space propulsion project that took Apollo astronauts to the moon. Following the first moon landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in 1969, the Cullys attended a gala dinner in Los Angeles, featuring President Nixon, the astronauts and a host of celebrities. Martha said the event was a highlight of their life.

After he retired in 1975, she said, Cully's "sense of adventure" never waned. His wife said he celebrated his 69th birthday by walking Hannibal's route through the Alps between Grenoble, France, and Susa, Italy. The Carthaginian general brought along elephants that he used as battering rams against the Roman army in 218 B.C. "He was fascinated with the story of Hannibal and the elephants," Martha said. "He went all alone." When he was 82, Cully walked the length of Hadrian's Wall - a stone barrier the Roman emperor built across England in the second century to protect the empire's frontier from invading tribes.

"He liked challenges like that," she said.

Other survivors include daughters, Suzanne Cully of Albuquerque and Sarah Clemens of San Diego; and sons, Buck of Manhattan, Kan., Patrick of Concord, N.H., and Tim of Jackson, Wyo.

Memorial donations can be made to Joy Junction, P.O. Box 27693, Albuquerque, N.M. 871254.

Albuquerque Journal Albuquerque, NM, 16 Oct 1998

Sources: Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and FindAGrave.com

11/04/2026 EJS

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/542982/jack_francis-cully