Recently my cousin and family member Paul Liebhardt passed away. He worked at NASA for a time and then became a photographer. While a photographer, he traveled internationally. His work as a photographer is well known. The remembrance celebration (link below) shows nice videos and writing of his students coming together from various paths of …
Continue reading “Remembering Family – Photographer Paul Liebhardt”
I received word via the NASA Alumni Association that Dennis Bushnell passed away. Dennis Bushnell was a long-serving Chief Scientist of NASA Langley Research Center. I remember meeting him for the first time when there was internal research funding available at NASA for researchers. I wrote a proposal on fluid thrust factoring of a particular …
Recently I lost a friend, Olaf O. Storaasli, Ph.D., due to medical complications. I first met him through the NASA Langley Alumni Association after giving a lecture titled Life After Academics. Although we did not overlap during my time at NASA, we connected through shared experiences. Later, he and his wife visited Florida, and I …
Below is an article that is upcoming in the NASA Alumni newsletter without images. “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Modern rocketry began with foundational work by pioneers such as Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, Goddard, and the American Rocket Society. Their theoretical and experimental advances …
Continue reading “The Three Pillars of Rocketry Culminating in Human Spaceflight”
Our present research airplanes have developed startling performance only by the use of rocket engines and flying essentially in a vacuum. Testing airplanes designed for transonic flight speeds at Mach numbers between 2 and 3 has proven, mainly, the bravery of the test pilots and the fact that where there is no drag, the rocket …
My senior colleague, Professor J. Chung, won the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal. Amazing. https://news.yahoo.com/news/nasa-awards-uf-professor-exceptional-192254541.html
https://everloved.com/life-of/stephen-jurczyk/obituary/ It seems just like yesterday that I was at NASA Langley working for a short time under then Director Stephen G. Jurczyk. He passed away just recently on Thanksgiving of 2023. He helped propel my career in the later stages of my time at Langley. One thing that I appreciated a lot about Stephen …
Appearing next month in the NASA Alumni Newsletter. Walking on the Washington, D.C. Mall is an inspiring experience for all citizens. One might be inspired by the many memories and great institutions of our American people. Nestled as one of the most visited museums of the world is the National Air and Space Museum, just …
Continue reading “National Air and Space Museum’s Journey Toward 2025”
Diogenes, when once questioned about his curious act of wandering the city in broad daylight with a lamp, replied, “I am looking for an honest man.” (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, XIV.1-5). Honesty in scientific and mathematical research is central to human progress. Recently, a series of disturbing events have changed the academic community. The President …
Continue reading “Note on Research and Ethics in the Age of Publish or Perish”
Graduate Student Garrison S. Osborne and Steven A. E. MillerUniversity of Florida Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Well before the loss of Columbia, the NASA Office of Technology Assessment wrote, “Shuttle reliability is uncertain, but has been estimated to range between 97 and 99 percent. If the Shuttle reliability is 98 percent, there would …
Continue reading “Reflection on Twenty Years Since the Loss of Columbia”
