Biographical Memoirs Volume 65 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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6. Charles Stark Draper
6. Charles Stark Draper
Pages 122-159
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From page 123... ...
Among all of the other things at which he excelled, "Doe" understooct human beings and he understood how to challenge them. The psychology curriculum probably did no harm, but instinctively Doc knew how to leacl and how to get people to follow towards a common goal.
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From page 124... ...
A Sloan fellowship and a Crane Automotive fellowship, for instance, paid his way in the Taylor brothers' Aeronautical Power Plant Laboratory. As a research associate ant!
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From page 125... ...
Changing the mixture ratio slightly below that critical point eliminated "knock," regulated engine temperature, and minimized fuel consumption—a key at that time to over-ocean flight safety. Doc's involvement with MIT became convincingly more permanent by the micT-1930s when he became an assistant, then an associate professor of aeronautical engineering.
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From page 126... ...
Of course, there was always a day of reckoning. Later there would be an examination that would have been put together by Professor Sidney Lees, Professor Walter Wrigley, or Professor Walt McKay, all of whom were associates.
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From page 127... ...
Rocket and gunfire control systems, the early inertial navigation systems, and later the MIT stuclent-buiTt manpowered aircraft and the sailplanes of the MIT soaring society, all shared the same facility well into the 19SOs.
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From page 128... ...
The invention and creation of the elements that went with measuring and controlling complex functions and processes served as a superb environment for learning. This happy set of conditions pertained in both the Aeronautical Power Plant Laboratory and in the Instrumentation Laboratory, which Draper createc!
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From page 129... ...
The simple father image of a man of devotion and care for his extended family is not enough. His entrepreneurial 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, and a mathematical language the unsuccessfulDraper notation optimalization as a control theory, the conceptualization (with Milton Trageser)
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From page 130... ...
Although Draper's primary attention was devoted to this instrument, he dicl get himself deep into the development of the gyro accelerometer which, with other devices, was perfected at the Instrumentation Laboratory. Draper had experience from the early days of the fire control clevelopments with unfloated instruments.
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From page 131... ...
To minimize uncertainties on that torque summing member, it was important that no forces or toroues annear inside the . ~ ~ Instrument that were not a direct response to the angular motions of the aircraft or the reference system in which the .
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From page 132... ...
Since the wheel of the gyro was spun on an axis normal to the torque summing or output axis of the instrument, it was important that the wheel not shift axially when loaded clown by acceleration forces. Draper cleveloped, to a state of perfection not seen elsewhere in the industry, the instrument class of ball bearing.
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From page 133... ...
Flotation was developed to isolate the sensing element from the environment so as to eliminate uncertainty torques on the output axis of the instrument. Flotation fluid facilitates!
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From page 134... ...
Termed a "microsyn," it was clevelopecI by Professor Robert Mueller of the MIT Aero Department with Draper as a collaborator. A very useful variation in Mueller's (resign was added later when Phil Gilinson, a lab engineer, developed a complimentary magnetic suspension.
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From page 135... ...
The combination of a rapid servo, a very short time constant control loop which included the rate integrating gyro as its sensor, and the Instrumentation Lab clevelopecl torque motors of the gimballing that enclosed the device, preserved reference systems integrity. In essence, the instrument was happiest at rest, or null signal.
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From page 136... ...
Marie Allen, his faithful secretary early on and Alice Moriarty or Peg Hooct later, wouIcT then announce cocktail time and break out the contents of the John B Nugent Medicinal Air!
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From page 137... ...
Honeywell comes to minct immediately, since it was their small singleclegree-of-freeclom rate integrating gyro that was usecl in the A-4 gun-bomb-rocket sight for the fixecl-wing fighters such as the F-86 Sabre. The applications for this unique family of sensors ranged from the high dynamic range pointing needs for automatic gunfire control through enormously demanding navigational references where stability governed.
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From page 138... ...
The gunners' range estimation process in its crudest form used a circular ring sight which he Tookoc3 through at the target. The sight hacl concentric circles decreasing in diameter from the outer rim to the center.
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From page 139... ...
anti-aircraft gun director folTowed, incorporating the MK-14 as its sensor element. In the case of the Mark 15, Draper used moclern servo control theory, the rate gyro, and a thorough unclerstancling of all of the elements of the fire control problem.
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From page 140... ...
There is some indication, however, that the primitive gyroscopic aircraft gun sights used cluring the Second World War came to America via the British, having originated in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the Instrumentation Laboratory. Using Draper's equipment, the carrier Enterprise and the battleship South Dakota entered into the engagement known as the Battle of Santa Cruz with light anti-aircraft automatic gun (20-mm Oerlikin)
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From page 141... ...
The elimination of the cross roll disturbance was again accommodated by a clever use of a gyro. The clevelopment of the Air Force's fire control equipment at the Instrumentation Laboratory followed the Navy's fire control clevelopments in part.
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From page 142... ...
Besicles the application of the superb single-degree-of-freedom floated gyros to the airborne gun fire control system problem, the clevelopment of the concept of aider! tracking by controlling the stability of the tracking system was a unique Instrumentation Laboratory contribution.
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From page 143... ...
Applied to both spacecraft and boosters they also became the ship's navigation systems and the guidance systems for the Navy's fleet ballistic missiles and the Air Force's ICBMs. His systems were the prototype for many commercial transport automatic navigation systems as well as those applied to military aircraft.
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From page 144... ...
Dr. Walter Wrigley, a student of Draper anti with Draper's encouragement and help, wrote his cloctoral cTissertation in 1938 at MIT, "On Vertical Indication From a Moving Base." The technology hack evolved so that the servo To op clo sect around a gyro stabilize c!
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From page 145... ...
General Ben Schriever hacl been appointed to concluct the USAF ballistic missile program when the emergency situation was first perceived in 1954. He wisely disengaged from the normal bureaucracy and the technical conservatism it seems always to exhibit.
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From page 146... ...
The Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) systems grew out of the Thor technology.
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From page 147... ...
The MTT Instrumentation Laboratory received the first contract award macle by the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the moon program, but only after a careful evaluation of Doc's proposal hacl been made by the NASA staff. The design of the guidance, navigation, and control equipment was not an extraordinary task for the Instrumentation Laboratory.
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From page 148... ...
It was that mission which required the systems engineering that was most convincing in Draper's sales program with the NASA management. The pioneering activity of the digital computer as the computational element of the inertial equipment hacl been proven in concept in the Ray Alonso design for the Mars probe, which had been proven in practice with the fleet ballistic missile Polaris guidance system.
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From page 149... ...
caused some tense moments when in real time this provision for restart in the computer was proven to be a wise one. The computer receiving multiple pulses from the unneeded and unwanted rendezvous radar ignored them, but displayed alarms indicating it was overloading.
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From page 150... ...
The MIT administration vacillated in its support. One tower of strength early on was Nathaniel Sage, (Erector of MIT's Division of Industrial Cooperation, who encouraged Draper during the tough early years of the Instrumentation Laboratory's formation ant!
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From page 151... ...
The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, from a member of the MIT family to a distant cousin status might not have occurred so smoothly and efficiently and possibly not at all. Hill brought with him two superb aciministrators: Dave Driscoll performed spectacularly in managing the new company's at first nonexistent finances, and foe O'Connor hancIled the laboratory administration.
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From page 152... ...
for the people of the United States. Many senior executives in industry today share a common background which includes undergraduate and graduate education at MTT in the Aero Department, or with research association to the Draper Laboratory.
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From page 153... ...
The sharer! overhead of the institute roughly proportionally split costs between the academic departments representing a quarter of the institution's budget and the lion's share of the remainder represented by Al Hill's area of responsibility losing the Instrumentation Lab as a revenue source was a significant trauma to the fiscal managers.
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From page 154... ...
The Draper Laboratory awards gractuate fellowships at MTT in his name and supports military officers studying for graduate degrees at MIT, also in Draper's name.
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From page 155... ...
Inertial navigation was another grossly different way in which to look at the process of getting from here to there. He was different.
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From page 156... ...
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Aeronautical Instrument Laboratory, 1945-46. 1947 With the staff of the Instrumentation Laboratory.
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From page 157... ...
Wrigley. Inertial Guidance, International Series on Aeronautical Sciences and Space Flight, Division 7 (Astronautics)
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From page 158... ...
158 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS 1965 Survey of inertial navigation problems in sea, air, and space navigation. Papers of the International Congress on Long-Range, Sea, Air, and Space Navigation.
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