- Burt Rutan
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He is most famous for his design of the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the suborbital rocket plane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004. - Robert Zubrin
Robert Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of manned Mars exploration. He was the driving force behind Mars Direct-a proposal intended to produce significant reductions in the cost and complexity of such a mission. The key idea was to use the Martian atmosphere to produce oxygen, water, and rocket propellant for the surface stay and return journey. - Wernher von Braun
Dr. Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23 1912 - June 16 1977) was one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the United States. The German scientist, who led Germany's rocket development program (V-2) before and during World War II, entered the United States at the end of the war through the then-secret Operation Paperclip. - Kalpana Chawla
Kalpana Chawla (Punjabi:ਕਲਪਨਾ ਚਾਵਲਾ) (7 March 1962 – 1 February 2003), was an Indian-born American astronaut and space shuttle mission specialist. She was one of seven crewmembers lost aboard Space Shuttle Columbia during mission STS-107 when the shuttle disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Kalpana Chawla is a posthumous recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. - Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was, in his time, an aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer and director, a playboy, an eccentric, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He is famous for setting multiple, world air-speed records, building the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 Hercules airplanes, producing the movies "Hell's Angels" and "The Outlaw", owning and expanding TWA, and for his debilitating eccentric behavior in later life. - Homer Hickam
Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. (born February 19, 1943) is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel "Rocket Boys: A Memoir", is the most popular community read in the United States, was a #1 "New York Times" best-seller, is studied in many American and international school systems, and was the basis for the popular film "October Sky". - Elon Musk
SpaceX ( www.spacex.com ) is the third company founded by Mr. Musk. Prior to SpaceX, he co-founded PayPal, the world's leading electronic payment system, and served as the company's chairman and CEO. PayPal has over twenty million customers in 38 countries, processes several billion dollars per year and went public on the NASDAQ under PYPL in early 2002. Mr. Musk was the largest shareholder of PayPal until the company was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in October 2002. - Eugen Sänger
Eugen Sänger was an Austrian aerospace engineer best known for his contributions to lifting body and ramjet technology. His name is pronounced "Oy ghen Zeng er", and must be spelled either with the umlaut, or as "Saenger." Sänger was born in Preßnitz in Bohemia, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied civil engineering at the Technical Universities of Graz and Vienna. - Janet Guthrie
Janet Guthrie (born March 7, 1938 in Iowa City, Iowa) is a race car driver and the first woman to qualify and compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. Guthrie was originally an aerospace engineer and after graduating from the University of Michigan, she worked with Republic Aviation. She began racing in 1963 on the SCCA circuit in a Jaguar XK 140 and by 1972, she was racing on a full-time basis. In 1976, Guthrie got her first big break in racing, … - Joseph Smith
Joseph ("Joe") Smith was an English aircraft designer who took over as Chief Designer for Supermarine's upon the death of R. J. Mitchell and led the team responsible for the subsequent development of the Supermarine Spitfire. - Sergey Ilyushin
Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin (February 9, 1977) was a Russian aircraft designer who founded the Ilyushin aircraft design bureau. Born in Dilialevo, Russia, he became interested in aviation in 1910 and was qualified as a pilot in World War I. After obtaining a degree in engineering from the Air Force Academy in 1926, he started designing aircraft. His Ilyushin Il-2 strike aircraft and Ilyushin Il-4 bomber were used extensively in World War II. After the war, … - Robert H. Goddard
Robert Hutchings Goddard, Ph.D. (October 5, 1882 - August 10, 1945), U.S. professor and scientist, was a pioneer of controlled, liquid-fueled rocketry. He launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket on March 16, 1926. From 1930 to 1935 he launched rockets that attained speeds of up to 550 miles an hour. Though his work in the field was revolutionary, he was often ridiculed for his theories. He received little recognition during his own lifetime, … - Marcel Dassault
Marcel Dassault, born Marcel Bloch was a French aircraft industrialist. After graduating from the lycée Condorcet, "Breguet School" and Supaero, he invented a type of aircraft propeller used by the French army during World War I and founded the "Société des Avions Marcel Bloch" aircraft company. Following the nationalization of his company in 1936, under the Front Populaire, he stayed as a director. - Paul MacCready
Paul B. MacCready, Jr. (born September 25, 1925 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American aeronautical engineer. He is the founder of AeroVironment and the inventor of the first practical flying machine powered by a human being. MacCready graduated from Hopkins School in 1943, received his bachelor's degree in physics from Yale University in 1947, a master's degree in physics from Caltech in 1948, and a PhD in aeronautics from Caltech in 1952. - Elsie MacGill
Elizabeth Muriel Gregory "Elsie" MacGill (27 March 1905 - 4 November 1980), made famous as the Queen of the Hurricanes, was an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War who did much to make Canada a powerhouse of airplane construction during her years at Canada Car and Foundry (CC&F) in Fort William, Ontario. After her work at CC&F she ran a successful consulting business, … - Paul R. Hill
Paul R. Hill (1909-1990) was a pioneering aeronautical research engineer who spent a lifetime on the cutting edge of research and development for NACA and NASA. He is also well-known in the field of Ufology for his scientific research into the subject of UFOs, detailed in "Unconventional Flying Objects", written by Hill in the 1970s, but published posthumously in 1995. - Igor Sikorsky
Igor Ivanovich (or Ihor Ivanovych) Sikorsky (25 May, 1889 - 26 October, 1972) was a pioneer of aviation who designed the first four-engine fixed-wing aircraft and the first successful helicopter of the most common configuration (single main rotor tail rotor). - Gerhard Zucker
Gerhard Zucker (1900 - 1985) was a German businessman and rocket engineer. Born in Hasselfelde, he first came to public notice in 1931, when he began to work on the problem of transporting mail by rocket. In 1933 he performed several experiments in the Harz and at Cuxhaven. In 1934, he emigrated to the UK, where he attempted to interest the British government in his rocket. After a failed rocket demonstration for officials of the British Royal Mail on July 31 1934, … - Hans von Ohain
Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain (December 14 1911 - March 13 1998) was one of the inventors of jet propulsion. Ohain designed the first self-contained jet engine to run, and he was the first to power an all-jet aircraft. Although none of his designs entered production, his contributions to the development of the jet engine in Germany are invaluable. After the war, he met his British counterpart, Frank Whittle, and the two became good friends. - Ernst Stuhlinger
Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger is an American atomic, electrical and rocket scientist born in Niederrimbach, Germany, on December 19, 1913. He earned his Ph.D. in physics at age 23, and in 1939 went to work for the German Atomic Energy Program. In 1943, he joined Dr. Wernher von Braun's team at the German village of Peenemuende, where he worked in the field of guidance systems. He was one of 126 scientists who immigrated to the United States with Dr. - Ludwig Bölkow
Ludwig Bölkow was one of the aeronautical pioneers of Germany. Born in Schwerin as the son of an employee of the Fokker company he studied airplane engineering in Berlin. During World War II he was the lead engineer at the Messerschmitt AG building the first jet plane, the Me 262. After the war he created the Bölkow GmbH in Ottobrunn, which with time grew to the biggest aeronautics and spaceflight company, MBB (Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm). - Theodore von Kármán
Theodore von Kármán (Szőllőskislaki Kármán Tódor was a Hungarian-American engineer and physicist who was active primarily in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. He is personally responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics, notably his work on supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization. - Alex Smith
Sir Alex Smith was born in Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland, in 1922 and died in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England. He was educated at Lossiemouth, Elgin Academy and then, following the winning of a scholarship, at Aberdeen University, Scotland. The Second World War interrrupted his university years but he returned to Aberdeen after having served throughout the war years in the Royal Navy. After his graduation, Sir Alex went to work for Rolls-Royce, … - Edward A. Murphy Jr.
Edward A. Murphy, Jr. (1918 - 1990) was an American aerospace engineer who worked on safety-critical systems and is best-known for Murphy's Law which states that "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way". This is not to be confused with Finagle's law. Born in Panama in 1918, Murphy was the eldest of five children. - Willy Ley
Willy Ley (October 2 1906 - June 24 1969) was a science writer and space advocate who helped popularise rocketry and spaceflight in Germany and the United States. - Alexander Schleicher
Alexander Schleicher was a German pioneer of sailplane design. The company that he founded and which bears his name - Alexander Schleicher GmbH & Co - is today one of the world’s leading sailplane manufacturers. Schleicher was born in Huhnrain, the son of a joiner. From the time he was fourteen years old, he worked with his father and learned his trade. - Robert R. Gilruth
Robert Rowe Gilruth (October 18 1913-August 17 2000) was an American aviation and space pioneer. In the beginning of his career he was involved with early research into supersonic flight and rocket-powered aircraft and then with the manned space program, including the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo projects. He worked for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics from 1937 to 1958 and its successor agency, the NASA, until retirement in 1973. - James R. French
James R. French is a prominent U.S. aerospace engineer. While working for different NASA contractors during the 1960s, he helped design, develop and test the rocket engines for the Apollo/Saturn launch vehicles and the Apollo Lunar Module that enabled humans to walk on the Moon. He then joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he worked on the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager missions. French is a long-time advocate of a mission architecture for a Mars probe, … - Hugo Junkers
Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 - 3 February 1935) was an innovative German engineer, as his many patents in varied areas (gas engines, aeroplanes) show. The name Junkers is mainly known in connection with aircraft, which were produced under this name for the Luftwaffe during World War II. By then, however, the Nazi government was running his businesses, and Hugo Junkers himself was gone. - Frank Whittle
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, FRS, Hon FRAeS (1 June 1907-9 August 1996) was an English Royal Air Force officer and is seen as the father of jet propulsion. By the end of the war, Whittle's efforts resulted in engines that would lead the world in performance through the end of the decade. Whittle and Hans von Ohain met after the war and initially Whittle was angry with him as he felt Ohain had stolen his ideas. - Liviu Librescu
Liviu Librescu (August 18, 1930 - April 16, 2007;) was a Romanian born and educated Israeli-American scientist and academic whose major research fields were aeroelasticity and aerodynamics. His last academic position was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech. - Kurt Tank
Kurt Waldemar Tank (February 24 1898 - June 5 1983) was a resourceful German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft. Before Focke Wulf, Tank was employed by Albatros Flugzeugwerke, but after their bankruptcy in 1929, … - Tim Commerford
Tim Commerford (born February 26, 1968 in Irvine, California), also known by his various monikers/stage names (Y. tim K. , Timmy C. , Simmering T, Tim Bob, and tim.COM) is the bassist/backing vocalist for Rage Against the Machine and of the seemingly defunct Audioslave. He has also taken to playing the drums and double bass, stating that he is a huge fan of jazz. - Glenn Curtiss
Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 - July 23, 1930) was an aviation pioneer and founder of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. - Geoffrey A. Landis
Geoffrey A. Landis emerged in the late 1980s as one of the foremost scientist-writers in the science fiction genre. Landis holds undergraduate degrees in physics and electrical engineering from MIT and a Ph.D. in solid-state physics from Brown University. He works for the NASA John Glenn Research Center, where he does research on Mars missions, solar energy, and advanced concepts for interstellar propulsion. - Glynn Lunney
Glynn S. Lunney (born November 27, 1936) is a retired NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its foundation in 1958, Lunney was a flight director during the Gemini and Apollo programs, and was on duty during historic events such as the Apollo 11 lunar ascent and the pivotal hours of the Apollo 13 crisis. At the end of the Apollo program, he became manager of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, … - Jordin Kare
Jordin Kare (b. 1956) is a rocket scientist, physicist, and aerospace engineer known for his research on laser propulsion. In particular, he was responsible for Mockingbird, a conceptual design for an extremely small (75 kg dry mass) reusable launch vehicle, and was involved in the Clementine lunar mapping mission. - Satish Dhawan
Satish Dhawan (25 September 1920-3 January 2002) was an Indian rocket scientist who was born in Srinagar, India and educated in India and the United States. He is considered by the Indian scientific community to be the father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India and one of the most eminent researchers in the field of turbulence and boundary layers. He succeeded Vikram Sarabhai, the founder of the Indian space programme, … - Andrei Tupolev
Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev (November 10, 1888 - December 23, 1972) was a pioneering Soviet aircraft designer. - Antony Jameson
Antony Jameson (1934, Gillingham, Kent UK) is an aeronautical engineer known for his pioneering work in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics.
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