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Blogs > OnDaFence > Bret's Blogisphere |
Pocket Protectors and Slide Rules When you watch those old NASA movies you see those "pre-geek" guys with their pocket protectors and slide rules that put men on the moon and in the case of Apollo XIII pulled victory from the teeth of disaster. Without computers they used their brains to find answers to problems and questions as they arose. Last Tuesday we lost another of those men, John C. Houbolt, born April 10, 1919, in Altoona, Iowa, Houbolt grew up in Joliet, Ill., and earned degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich in 1957. Houbolt died Tuesday at a nursing home in Scarborough, Maine, of complications from Parkinson's disease, his -in-law Tucker Withington, of Plymouth, Mass., confirmed Saturday. As NASA describes on its website, while under pressure during the U.S.-Soviet space race, Houbolt was the catalyst in securing U.S. commitment to the science and engineering theory that eventually carried the Apollo crew to the moon and back safely. His efforts in the early 1960s are largely credited with convincing NASA to focus on the launch of a module carrying a crew from lunar orbit, rather than a rocket from Earth or a space craft while orbiting the planet. Houbolt argued that a lunar orbit rendezvous, or lor, would not only be less mechanically and financially onerous than building a huge rocket to take man to the moon or launching a craft while orbiting the Earth, but lor was the only option to meet President John F. Kennedy's challenge before the end of the decade. NASA describes "the bold step of skipping proper channels" that Houbolt took by pushing the issue in a private letter in 1961 to an incoming administrator. "Do we want to go to the moon or not?" Houbolt asks. "... why is a much less grandiose scheme involving rendezvous ostracized or put on the defensive? I fully realize that contacting you in this manner is somewhat unorthodox, but the issues at stake are crucial enough to us all that an unusual course is warranted." Houbolt started his career with NASA's predecessor in Hampton, Va., in 1942, served in the Army Corps of Engineers, and worked in an aeronautical research and consulting firm in Princeton, N.J., before returning to NASA in 1976 as chief aeronautical scientist. He retired in 1985 but continued private consulting work. |
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4/21/2014 7:31 am |
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. Always appreciated.
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4/21/2014 12:41 pm |
He is one of a kind and we have no one today to do as he did. Everyone from Pre-school through college is taught to STAY IN THE BOX and most work places are the same. In my humble opinion we can blame this on the AIDS / HIV epidemic of the 80's and 90's robbing our society of those who thought, acted and lived outside the box being able to take on the necessary leadership rolls.
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4/22/2014 9:07 am |
I totally agree... and our thinking processes get boxed up and regimented in a class room and many work environments.
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4/22/2014 6:56 pm |
Playing "devils advocate" why teach our kids or society to "think outside the box" and reach for the stars. Let the Russians do that - don't they already take our astronauts into space for us?!?!?!
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4/22/2014 8:34 pm |
yes they do... and we have let them take the lead in about every aspect too.
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