Charles Stark Draper

Charles Stark Draper[1]
Born	(1901-10-02)October 2, 1901 Windsor, Missouri, U.S.
Died	July 25, 1987(1987-07-25) (aged 85) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	MIT (B.S., 1926; M.S., 1936; Sc.D., 1938) Stanford University (B.A., Psychology, 1922)
Awards	Magellanic Premium (1959) National Medal of Science (1964) Daniel Guggenheim Medal (1966) Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1971) Allan D. Emil Memorial Award (1977) Control Heritage Award (1981)
Scientific career
Fields	Control theory
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis	The physical processes accompanying detonation in the internal combustion engine (1938)
Doctoral advisor	Philip M. Morse
Doctoral students	Yao-Tzu Li Robert Seamans

Charles Stark "Doc" Draper (October 2, 1901 – July 25, 1987) was an American scientist and engineer, known as the "father of inertial navigation".^[2] He was the founder and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Instrumentation Laboratory, which was later spun out of MIT to become the non-profit Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

Beginning in the 1940s, Draper developed inertial guidance systems for aircraft. In World War II, Draper invented the first lead-computing gunsights for aircraft, and later applying similar technology to missile guidance systems. In 1954, Draper's application of inertial controls to computerized autopilot allowed the Instrumentation Lab to conduct the first coast-to-coast unmanned flight. The lab also made the Apollo Moon landings possible through the Apollo Guidance Computer it designed for NASA. In 1960, Draper was one of the scientists recognized as Time magazine's Men of the Year.