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Charles Stark Draper was an American aeronautical engineer, educator, and science administrator. He is remembered, as the father of inertial navigation.
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Key Facts & Information
PERSONAL LIFE
- Charles Stark Draper was born on October 2, 1901, in Windsor, Missouri, US. His father was a dentist. He went to public school, entering Rolla Campus at the University of Missouri at the age of 15, where he studied liberal arts for two years, then transferred to Stanford University, California in 1919, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology in 1922.
- Charles matriculated from at MIT in 1922, getting his Bachelor of Science degree in electrochemical engineering in 1926.
- In 1928, he got his Master of Science.
- Charles was hired by MIT in 1935, receiving a Doctor of Science in Physics in 1938, they promoted him to professor.
- Charles married Ivy Hurd Willard in 1939 in Ohio. they had four children.
- Charles died on July 25, 1987 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, at the age of 85.
- Draper is survived by his wife, the former Ivy Hurd Willard, and four children, James, Martha Draper Ditmeyer, John, and Michael.
CAREER
- Charles began teaching at MIT as an assistant professor. He became a full professor in 1939 for the aeronautical engineering department.
- He founded the Instrumentation Laboratory in 1934, and it changed its name to the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in 1973.
- Charles became interested in flight instrumentation when he began piloting in the 1930s. He applied to become an Air Corps pilot but didn’t pass the entry exams. He learned to fly by enrolling on a civilian course.
- During World War II, Charles began developing antiaircraft weapons. Airplanes became a critical weapon of modern warfare. Fighter planes were too fast and agile for traditional fire-control systems. Charles and his students at MIT designed and built the Mark 14 gyroscopic lead-computing gunsight. The gunsight calculated an aircraft’s future position, taking into account gravity, distance, and wind. Charles trained naval officers on how to use the new sight, while his students oversaw the manufacturing process of the gyroscopic lead-computing gunsight. By the end of the war, they had made more than 85,000 Mark 14 sights.
- During the war, radar and other radio- and microwave-based technologies helped the aircraft to navigate to their targets under various weather conditions and accuracy. But the system was vulnerable to enemy jamming and provided enemies with an electromagnetic phantom to track and attack.
- After the war, Charles began developing self-contained navigation systems for missiles and aircraft.
- Charles worked with gyroscopes insulated in a climate-controlled viscous fluid and later accelerometers; this was when he developed a self-contained inertial guidance system. These machines were so precise that they could compute a vehicle’s exact position from its initial position and acceleration and would need no further input, making them less vulnerable to enemy countermeasures.
- The first systems for the aircraft were tested in 1949 and 1953. They were installed in aircraft and submarines in 1956 and the Polaris missile in 1960.
- Charles helped pioneer inertial navigation, the technology used in aircraft, space vehicles, and submarines, enabling vehicles to navigate by sensing changes in direction and speed using gyroscopes and accelerometers. He was one of the pioneering figures in aerospace engineering, contributing to the Apollo Space Program with his knowledge of guidance systems.
- Robert Seamans, one of Charles’s graduates, got the contract for I-Lab to develop the Apollo program guidance system, which sent Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon and back.
- President John F Kennedy announced on May 25, 1961 that they had awarded Draper and the Instrumentation Lab the first contract for the Apollo program to travel to the Moon.
- This contract led to the creation of the Apollo Guidance Computer, the computer-controlled the navigation and guidance of the Lunar Excursion Module to the Moon on nine launches, six of which landed on the moon’s surface.
- Charles taught at MIT and researched up until January 1970. In his final decade, he spent most of his time completing Apollo computers and software.
- Charles was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1981.
AWARDS
- Charles received more than 70 honors and awards:
- Howard N Potts Medal in 1960
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1961
- National Medal of Science from President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964
- ASMEβs Rufus Oldenburger Medal in 1971
- Robert H Goddard Trophy in 1978
- AACCβs Richard E Bellman Control Heritage Award and the Smithsonian’s Langley Gold Medal in 1981; later that year he got the National Academy of Engineering’s Founder Award.
- Charles was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame.
- The National Academy of Engineering set up the Charles Stark Draper Prize in 1988 on behalf of the laboratory at MIT. This award is given annually and consists of $500,000 in cash, a gold medallion, and a hand-inscribed certificate.
Charles Stark Draper Worksheets
This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Charles Stark Draper across 27 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Charles Stark Draper worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Charles Stark Draper who was an American aeronautical engineer, educator, and science administrator. He is remembered, as the father of inertial navigation.
Complete List Of Included Worksheets
- Charles Stark Draper Facts
- Charles Stark Draper Profile
- Charles Stark Draper Quiz
- Bottle Rocket
- Fill in the Blanks
- Hoop and Cap Experiment
- Cartoon
- Name the Astronauts
- Name the Awards
- Match the Date
- Shine the Light
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