Not a rocket “scientist.” A eulogy to his late father-in-law, from John Bossard.
2 thoughts on “Remembering A Rocket Engineer”
“Rocket designer”, not “rocket engineer”, in this case… it takes all kinds….
BBB
Bob earned a BS in biology from Canisius College in Buffalo NY. Later he took mechanical engineering coursework at the University of Buffalo, and technology management at Caltech.
Bob started at Bell Aircraft in the drafting department but, with his penchant for design, soon moved over to the engineering department.
Although he functioned as an engineer at Bell and Aerojet (he served as chief engineer at Aerojet, as mentioned), in his heart of hearts, I think he saw himself as a primarily a designer, and he wanted to make that distinction clear to me. In Rand’s previous post “Annoying”, there’s some good discussion of the distinction between the prefix “rocket” and the nouns “scientist”, and “engineer”. I suppose now we can add “designer”.
“Rocket designer”, not “rocket engineer”, in this case… it takes all kinds….
BBB
Bob earned a BS in biology from Canisius College in Buffalo NY. Later he took mechanical engineering coursework at the University of Buffalo, and technology management at Caltech.
Bob started at Bell Aircraft in the drafting department but, with his penchant for design, soon moved over to the engineering department.
Although he functioned as an engineer at Bell and Aerojet (he served as chief engineer at Aerojet, as mentioned), in his heart of hearts, I think he saw himself as a primarily a designer, and he wanted to make that distinction clear to me. In Rand’s previous post “Annoying”, there’s some good discussion of the distinction between the prefix “rocket” and the nouns “scientist”, and “engineer”. I suppose now we can add “designer”.