Memorial Tributes Volume 15 (2011) / Chapter Skim
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Robert R. Gilruth 1913-2000
Robert R. Gilruth 1913-2000
Pages 128-141
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From page 129... ...
He led the United states in the Mercury, gemini, and apollo efforts and directed the greatest engineering achievement in history: the safe voyages of humans to the Moon. I worked for Bob as director of flight operations and succeeded him as director of the Johnson space center.
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From page 130... ...
in 1961, after President Kennedy committed the nation to land a human on the Moon, gilruth became director of the National aeronautics and space administration's Manned spacecraft center in Houston, Texas. He actively directed and oversaw the design and construction of spacecraft, the selection and training of astronauts, and the planning and operation of space flights.
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From page 131... ...
about this time the famed french balloonist Jean Piccard joined Minnesota's faculty. Piccard, a pioneer in upperatmosphere research, asked gilruth to develop a valve to keep constant air pressure inside an airplane's cockpit.
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From page 132... ...
also at this time, for a wage of 40 cents an hour, gilruth helped design the Laird Watt, a racing plane flown by the famed pilot Roscoe Turner. According to Gilruth, "I was trying to design an airplane that was going to win the Thompson Trophy race.
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From page 133... ...
as a result of the project, gilruth wrote a report titled Requirements for Satisfactory Flying Qualities of Airplanes, which abstained from pilot jargon and put numbers to the qualities that made an airplane's characteristics good or bad. for the first time Gilruth used his concept of "stick force per g," which compares the pilot's actions to the airplane's reactions.
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From page 134... ...
The results were so important that they were promptly classified top secret, but they helped shape the wing of the Bell x-1, which would break the sound barrier in 1947. at about this time gilruth and others at langley were also dropping streamlined bodies from high altitudes.
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From page 135... ...
congress created Nasa on october 1, 1958, and incorporated all of Naca and its 8,000 employees. Before long, Nasa absorbed the space science group of the Naval research laboratory, the Jet Propulsion laboratory, and the army Ballistic Missile agency in Huntsville, alabama, where Werner von Braun's engineers were already designing large rockets.
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From page 136... ...
astronauts were selected and trained, capsules were designed and constructed, rockets were tested, and the cape canaveral launch site was readied. But the soviet Union beat the United states into space with the one-orbit flight of Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961.
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From page 137... ...
it was also near water, where gilruth could build his boats. in an amazingly brief period the Manned spacecraft center was constructed, the Gemini flights were flown, and the apollo spacecraft were built, all as gilruth coordinated these activities and other efforts with the other Nasa installation directors, von Braun at Marshall in Huntsville, alabama, and Kurt Debus at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
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From page 138... ...
Then, on January 27, 1967, a fire during a ground simulation in an apollo spacecraft test killed the Apollo 1 prime crew: gus grissom, ed White, and roger chaffee. Bob gilruth was in Washington, D.C., meeting with contractors.
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From page 139... ...
He was elected an honorary fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and the royal aeronautical society and was a fellow of the american astronautical society. The sylvanus albert reed award in 1950 from the institute of aerospace Sciences was the first of many prestigious awards and medals he received, including the louis Hill space Transportation award (1962)
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From page 140... ...
, the James Watt international Medal from the institution of Mechanical engineers (1971) , the National aviation club award for achievement (1971)
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