June 03, 2022, 6:30PM: June Regular Meeting - IN PERSON and via Zoom
“LIFTOFF”
With Mr. F Don Cooper
NOTE: This meeting is being held IN PERSON at the Trini Mendenhall Community Center 1414 Wirt Rd, Houston, TX 77055. It will also be live streamed via Zoom for those not able to attend in person.
"Four, three, two, one, zero, all engines running, liftoff, we have a liftoff!" F. Don Cooper was a member of the NASA team that created the Saturn guidance and trans-lunar targeting equations. This is one of the key technological innovations which made the Apollo manned lunar missions possible.
Mr. Cooper will give us some first hand history of the Apollo program and tell us about some of the people who made it happen. He will also tell us how the Apollo guidance system was developed and run using 1960’s computer technology.
Please join us for a fascinating look into one of mankind’s most historic achievements as told by one of the key members of the team that made it happen.
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Our Speaker : Mr. F. Don Cooper graduated with honors from Oklahoma Baptist University in 1960 with a degree in Physics and minors in mathematics and chemistry. He attended graduate school at the University of Alabama.
He began work for NASA at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama. He worked in the Guidance Theory Section, as a mathematician helping create the trans-lunar targeting equations for the manned Apollo missions.
In 1965 he moved to Houston and continued to work on Apollo for the Johnson Space Center including support for the Apollo 13 mission. In 1972 he left the space program and went on to work in other technical jobs.
Since retiring, he has spoken at schools and libraries about how we went to the moon and to show how a practical application of math created the Saturn V Apollo guidance equations. His goal is to encourage students to study math and science.
Awards include the Profile in Excellence from Oklahoma Baptist University and the Presidential Medal of Freedom as a member of the Apollo 13 team.
It may seem obvious, but critical focus is one of the key attributes of a good astro-image. Critical focus is the technical term used to mean that the image is focused to the diffraction limit of the optical system (based on the physical properties of the system and how light interacts with it).
It is also encouraging for me to note that in the early days of astronomical science, it was “amateurs” who were making the discoveries and developing new techniques and technologies in the process. Few stories from the history of astronomy illustrate this better than the discovery of the aberration of starlight.
This is an update on my project to get kids involved in astronomy by giving them their own personal telescope. I feel they will be more likely to use a telescope that is theirs, one they helped to design and decorate. This is my fourth project and I am very pleased with the outcome.
