Missouri Bicentennial: Charles Stark Draper

Each year, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) awards the Charles Stark Draper Prize for the advancement of engineering and public education about engineering. Established in 1988, this is one of the highest awards in the field of engineering, and it is sometime referred to as the Nobel Prize for engineering.

Draper was born in Windsor, Missouri, on October 2, 1901. He attended the University of Missouri at Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) at age 15 before transferring to Stanford University where he received a degree in psychology. He moved on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he studied engineering and physics, earned a doctorate and became a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

As he was developing as an academic, he also tried to become a pilot in the Army Air Corp. He was not accepted, but serve in the Air Corp Reserve from 1926 to 1942. Failing to become military pilot, he got his civilian pilot’s license. As someone teaching an engineering course in aviation instrumentation, he understood their use and limitations. To demonstrate what he saw as inadequacies of instrumentation he took a senior faculty member, Jay Stratton who later served as MIT president, up in his plane. Draped did spins and stalls over Boston Harbor, convincing Stratton both that the instrumentation needed improvement and that he would never fly with Draper again.

At MIT, Draper researched navigation and control systems, particularly making use of gyroscopes. Gyroscopes can respond to very small changes in direction. Because of this, they can be used as the foundation for accelerometers, devices that detect changes in direction of movement. When small movement of the gyroscope relative to something that carries its, such as an airplane, submarine or missile, is detected by the accelerometer, the information can be fed into a computer to alert a pilot or operate automatic controls that correct the direction.

“Doc” Draper’s laboratory at MIT did a lot of work for the U.S. Navy, which had an interest in the development of accurate targeting and guidance systems. During World War II it was called the Confidential Instrument Development Laboratory; after the war it went by the simpler Instrumentation Laboratory, or I-Lab. In 1973, MIT created the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., as a separate nonprofit research and development lab, partly in response to MIT’s discomfort with associations with military research that arose during the Vietnam War, though the lab was not active in such research at the time. This group sponsors the NAE Draper Prize. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the lab has facilities at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas; Reston, Virginia; and Huntsville, Alabama.

Early applications of this technology were military, such as stabilizing targeting systems for large guns and controlling missiles. During World War II, the Mark 14 gyroscopic lead-computing gunsight he built with his students greatly increased the effectiveness of antiaircraft guns on ships. More than 85,000 Mark 14 sights were installed on American and British naval vessels. The lab continued to develop military technology after the war. Radar and radio-control were successfully used for navigation and guidance, but they were subject to interference that could jam, interrupt or confuse signals. Draper and I-Lab colleagues used their gyroscopic accelerometers to develop self-contained guidance and navigation systems, referred to as inertial navigation. These devices allowed aircraft to accurately determine their position based on their starting position and subsequent motion without reliance on radar or other signals that were subject to intentional interference. These devices were deployed in aircraft, submarines and missiles starting in the 1960s.

Technology developed at the I-Lab found use in use in civilian applications, especially guidance, navigation and control of spacecraft. He and his coworkers at the MIT lab developed systems for the Apollo missions. Draper secured a contract with NASA to work on Apollo in 1961. He volunteered to be an astronaut, though he was selected. Draper was 60 years old, and though older men have since gone into space. It seems unlikely that NASA would have taken such risks at the time, even though his health was endorsed by Air Force Brigadier General Don Flickinger, a flight surgeon who had been on the committed that selected astronauts for the Mercury missions.

Though Draper did not go to the moon, the Apollo Guidance Computer, developed at the I-Lab, controlled the navigation of the Lunar Excursion Module on six successful moon landings. Recently, interest has grown online in preserving, building or making models of the Apollo Guidance Computer, and you can find several videos on Youtube. (Another Missourian and MIT graduate who contributed to the space program was James S. McDonnell.)

The push to the moon captured the American imagination. In 1961, Time magazine named Draper and 14 others men of the year.

Under Drapers guidance, MIT and the I-Lab became a training ground for military engineers during the Cold War. Reliable, automated guidance was a necessary technology for making the strategy of nuclear deterrence work. Because of the obvious applications of missile and aircraft guidance technology to rocket and spacecraft control, he also trained engineers for the space program.

Draper passed away in 1987 in Cambridge. His work earned him the nickname Mr. Gyro. He has been called the father of inertial navigation. He and his wife, Ivy, had four children.

Several organizations recognized Draper for his contributions to engineer and science in military and space applications. His service was recognized with the NASA Public Service Award, the National Space Club’s Goddard Trophy, the National Medal of Science, and the Smithsonian Institute awarded him the Langley Medal. The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum preserves a collection of Draper’s papers and possessions, including trophies he won in ballroom dancing competitions. He was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (which also awarded him the Oldenburger Medal), American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the NAE, the National Academy of Sciences and the French National Academy. He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.