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CHARLES STARK DRAPER
1901-1987
BY ROBERT A. DUFFY
CHARLES STARK DRAPER, a complex genius of the twenti-
eth century, was a modern version of the Renaissance man.
A teacher, scientist, and engineer by profession, but self-
described as a "greasy thumb mechanic," he was born on
October 2, 1901. He grew up in the small Missouri town of
Windsor where he went through the town's public school
system. He entered college when he was fifteen years old
at the Rolia campus of the University of Missouri as a liberal
arts student. After two years, he transferred to Stanford
University from which he graduated in 1922 with a B.A. in
psychology.
Among all of the other things at which he excelled, Doc
understood human beings and he understood how to challenge
them towards a common goal. The psychology curriculum
probably did no harm, but instinctively DOG knew how to
lead and how to get people to follow to a common goal.
He naturally interacted well with people. He liked and was
interested in his students and his colleagues. His students
and colleagues loved him in return. Above all, he lived for
his technology—his life became the technology he nurtured
to useful maturity.
He earned a B.S. in electro-chemical engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he went
after Stanford. Despite short defections, he essentially remained
57
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58
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
at MIT for the rest of his life, immersed and totally in-
volved in the developments associated with his measurement
and control instrumentation. I~egend has it that he took
more courses at MIT than anyone else has ever taken. There
he earned an M.S. in 1928 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1938.
Doc's involvement with MIT became convincingly more
permanent by the mid-1930s when he became an assistant,
then an associate professor in aeronautical engineering.
By 1939 he was a full professor.
It was during those early days, however, before advanc-
ing as a member of the junior faculty that he tried and
failed to become an Air Corps pilot. Perhaps as a consequence
of this rejection he enrolled in and quickly passed a civilian
course qualifying him to fly. He acquired an airplane and
recognized the need to improve the pilot's flight instrumentation.
He taught a course in aircraft instruments concurrently.
To make his point about instrumentation inadequacies, he
took Professor Jay Stratton, later to be president of MIT,
up in his airplane and showed him how one used the flight
instruments, indicating shortcomings he had perceived. He
caused the airplane to perform stalls and spins over Boston's
outer harbor. Professor Stratton was duly impressed by the
inadequacy of the instrumentation and Draper's ideas about
needed improvements. He diet not fly again with Draper!
Draper really pursued three major thrusts in his life's
work: measurement of physical processes, primarily the
instrumentation of dynamic geometry; the systems engineering
of those processes in the larger context of new concepts;
and, finally, the education of the engineering profession.
Following his early experiments with basic instruments, the
solution of the dynamic geometry problems associated with
gunfire control, both on fixed-wing aircraft mounted guns
and with deck-mounted antiaircraft guns, occurred first.
The second major thrust was the systems study, analysis,
and synthesis that came from using instrumentation to measure
quantities that are part of a larger issue. Here his
conceptualization and vision were applied to what we later
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CHARLES STARK DRAPER
59
termed the systems engineering process. The solution was
usually implemented by some control means using intelligence
from the sensory elements processed through what Draper
termed the informetics of some computational element.
In the development of this process, Draper and his people,
Bob Seamans leading, developed and demonstrated the first
all-attitude adaptive autopilot. Rocket and gunfire control
systems and the early inertial navigation and guidance systems
followed.
In the age of Apollo, the unheard-of challenge of putting
men on the moon and safely returning them to Earth appealed
to Doc as a prime application for his technology. The
creation of the guidance, navigation, and control elements
in the Apollo program was inspired by Draper although
many others made fundamental contributions.
Underlying all of that was the third, and perhaps the
most important, of all his interests the education process
that he created when he had both the MIT Aeronautical
Engineering Department en cl his Instrumentation Lab un-
der his direct control. "Mens et Manus," minds and hands-
the MIT motto had real meaning in this context. The
invention and creation of the elements that went with
measuring and controlling complex functions and processes
served as a superb environment for learning. His Instru-
mentation Laboratory, the Aero Department and its distin-
guished faculty, and the long list of his students led by him
into leadership positions are as much his legacy as the
magnificent systems capabilities he created. His entrepre-
neurial spirit and verve, concepts like navigating in a "black
box" so that a submerged vehicle can know its position and
velocity without external reference, the creation of spacecraft
and booster guidance systems, a mathematical language—
the so-called Draper notation—optimalization as a control
theory, and the conceptualization with Milton Trageser of
a Mars mission in the 1950s are all as much a part of this
genius as his care and concern for children and the young.
Draper became a public person with the Apollo program.
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Although he had been honored by both the Air Force and
the Navy for his wartime contributions, it wasn't until the
Apollo program began that the nation as a whole knew
Charles Stark Draper. Even before President Kennedy made
the public announcement that within the decade man would
be landed on the moon and brought back safely to Earth,
Draper, always with an ear to the ground, had seen that
evolving challenge as applying to him and his laboratory.
He and his people, using the Mars reconnaissance system
design as a background, had been working for several years
attempting to get government support. With the formation
of the Apollo program as the triggering event, he went to
James Webb, who had been appointed administrator of the
new National Aeronautics and Space Administration, offering
to design, build, and fly the Apollo guidance, control, and
navigation system. Webb and Hugh Dryden (of National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics heritage) believed Draper's
statements to the effect that navigation to the vicinity of
the moon without external aid was feasible. The Instru-
mentation Laboratory received the first contract award made
by NASA for the moon program.
The design of the guidance, navigation, and control
equipment was not an extraordinary task for the Instrumenta-
tion Laboratory. Thus, the challenge for the Instrumenta-
tion Laboratory was not to prove a concept or even a tech-
nology but rather to adapt the system to the extraordinary
distances and the demanding reliability requirements of
the manned moon mission. In actuality the version of Draper's
system implemented by Dave Hoag and his team used both
a star tracker and accepted radio position and velocity up-
dates from NASA's long base-line earth-based tracking sta-
tions- a sort of belt-and-suspenders solution that worked.
Draper died on July 25, 1987. Draper Laboratory along
with the MIT community honored him in a memorial service
during the fall academic session of 1987 when his long-
term friends and colleagues had returned to the campus.
MIT has two endowed chairs in his name (for junior fac-
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CHARLES STARK DRAPER
6
ulty members) in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department.
The Draper Laboratory awards graduate fellowships at MIT
and supports military officers studying for graduate degrees
at MIT, all in Draper's name.
Dr. Draper was elected to the National Academy of Sci-
ences and the National Academy of Engineering, and as a
foreign associate member to the French Academy of Sciences.
He was president of the van Karman Foundation, The In-
ternational Academy of Astronautics, and The National In-
ventors Council. He had many academic honorary degrees
and citations.
The board of directors of the Draper Laboratory authorized
an annual award in Draper's name to be administered by
the National Academy of Engineering. The award honors
the engineer who has contributed most to engineering in
the opinion of the NAE-appointed selection committee. The
aware! approximates the Nobel award in value, is permanently
endowed, and is expected to be given every two years.
Dr. Draper is survived by his wife, the former Ivy Hurd
Willard, and four children, James, Martha Draper Ditmeyer,
John, and Michael. The Drapers lived for many years in
Newton, Massachusetts, where Mrs. Draper now resides, re-
membered fondly for her strong support of Draper through
many long years of extended separations, interminable Saturday
sessions in her home, and memorable parties and picnics
for Doc's students and colleagues.
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