Misplaced Pages

#708291

36-503: In 1979 a special task force was assembled by RPI President George M. Low composed of faculty, staff, alumni/trustees, and students to study feasibility of developing a park. In March 1981 The Board of Trustees authorized a $ 3 million investment of the endowment to design and build the infrastructure for the first phase of the Park. Between 1981 and 1982 infrastructure was planned and developed over around 150 acres (0.61 km), including

72-711: A critical role in advocating for a lunar landing as NASA's long-term goal. He testified before Congress, spoke to the media, and presented at industry conferences on behalf of NASA. Low also formed the Low Committee in 1960, which produced a lunar landing feasibility study that played a role in John F. Kennedy 's decision to set a goal of landing humans on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. In February 1964, Low transferred to NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas , (now

108-794: A mathematician in an aerodynamics group. Low returned to RPI late in 1948 and received his Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1950. After completing his M.S. degree, Low joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) as an engineer at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio , (later the Lewis Research Center and now the Glenn Research Center ). He worked as

144-583: A nanotechnology show developed at RPI. The Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI) is the result of a $ 100 Million collaboration between RPI , IBM , and New York State to further nanotechnology innovations. When it opened in 2007 it was the 7th most powerful supercomputing centers in the world, and remains in the top 25. 42°40′43″N 73°41′48″W  /  42.67868°N 73.69659°W  / 42.67868; -73.69659 George Low George Michael Low (born Georg Michael Löw , June 10, 1926 – July 17, 1984)

180-609: A significant part in the development of the Space Shuttle program, the Skylab program, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project . Rocket engineer Wernher von Braun blamed Low for what he felt was shabby treatment in the early 1970s while he was at NASA Headquarters. According to Bob Ward's 2005 biography, von Braun believed Low was jealous of his fame and that Low helped force von Braun's unhappy departure from

216-531: A very reliable booster for launching of satellites and continued to evolve, remaining in use into the 21st century, when combined with the Centaur upper stage to form the Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle for launching geosynchronous communication satellites and space probes . The Centaur rocket was also designed, developed, and produced by Convair, and it was the first widely used outer space rocket to use

252-733: Is widely used today to calculate trigonometric functions in calculators , field-programmable gate arrays , and other small electronic systems. General Dynamics announced the sale of the Missile Systems Division segment of Convair to Hughes Aircraft Company in May 1992 and the Space Systems Division segment to Martin Marietta in 1994. In July 1994, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas mutually agreed to terminate Convair's contract to provide fuselages for

288-603: The Convair B-36 Peacemaker and Convair B-58 Hustler strategic bombers, and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptors. It also manufactured the first Atlas rockets, including the rockets that were used for the crewed orbital flights of Project Mercury . The company's subsequent Atlas-Centaur design continued this success and derivatives of the design remain in use as of 2023. The company also entered

324-724: The Johnson Space Center ) and served as Deputy Center Director. In April 1967, following the Apollo 1 fire, he was named manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office (ASPO), where he was responsible for directing the changes to the Apollo spacecraft necessary to make it flightworthy. In this role he led the use of FMEA, or failure mode and effects analysis , to rigorously define the possible risks in human space flight. Low also created and chaired

360-554: The Mirage fighter planes . One of Convair's most famous products was the ten-engined Convair B-36 strategic bomber, burning four turbojets and turning six pusher propellers driven by Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial piston engines. The Convair B-36 was the largest landbased piston engined bomber in the world. The Atlas missile , the F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart delta-winged interceptors, and

396-581: The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 space probes, the first two to be launched on trajectories that carried them out of the Solar System . In addition to aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles, Convair developed the large Charactron vacuum tubes, a form of cathode-ray tube (CRT) computer display with a shaped mask to form characters, and to give an example of a minor product, the CORDIC algorithms, which

SECTION 10

#1732782379709

432-556: The Rensselaer Technology Park . The New York State Center for Industrial Innovation was renamed the George M. Low Center for Industrial Innovation by RPI shortly after his death. In 1949, Low married Mary Ruth McNamara of Troy, New York . Between 1952 and 1963, they had five children: Mark S., Diane E., George David , John M., and Nancy A. His son David became an astronaut for NASA in 1985, flew three times on

468-529: The U.S. Air Force using V-2 technology motors in response to the Soviet missile threat. It was first launched in 1957 but its use as an ICBM was soon replaced in 1962 by the room-temperature liquid-fueled Titan II missile , and later by the solid-fueled Minuteman missile . The Atlas rocket transitioned into a civilian launch vehicle and was used for the first orbital crewed U.S. space flights during Project Mercury in 1962 and 1963. The Atlas rocket became

504-457: The jet airliner business with its Convair 880 and Convair 990 designs. These were smaller than contemporary aircraft like the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 , but somewhat faster than both. This combination of features failed to find a profitable niche and the company exited the airliner design business. However, the manufacturing capability built up for these projects proved very profitable and

540-608: The 300-seat MD-11 airliner. Manufacturing responsibility was to be transferred to McDonnell Douglas, which said it would not preserve the operation in San Diego. General Dynamics had tried for two years to sell the Aircraft structures segment of Convair unit, but the effort ultimately failed. The termination of the contract meant the end of the Convair Division and of General Dynamics' presence in San Diego, as well as

576-578: The B-24s, and its associated engineering locations and laboratories — all previously used to make hundreds of Consolidated B-24s, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark fighter-bombers and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons , along with dozens of smaller projects — were sold, along with all intellectual property and the legal rights to the products designed and built within, to the Lockheed Corporation . In 1996, General Dynamics deactivated all of

612-735: The Configuration Control Board, which had as its purpose to monitor technical changes that could inadvertently affect some other part of the complex Apollo system, thereby helping assure future mission safety. Flight Director Glynn Lunney praised Low's leadership, and his contributions helped return the Apollo project schedule to the promised date for the Moon landing. George Low became NASA deputy administrator in December 1969, serving with Administrators Thomas O. Paine and James C. Fletcher . He served as acting administrator after Paine's resignation. In these roles, Low played

648-799: The Convair company was bought by the General Dynamics Corporation , a conglomerate of military and high-technology companies, and it became officially the Convair Division within General Dynamics. After the beginning of the Jet Age of military fighters and bombers, Convair was a pioneer of the delta-winged aircraft design, along with the French Dassault aircraft company, which designed and built

684-685: The Space Shuttle, and died in 2008. On April 8, 1985, the White House announced that Low had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to the fields of education and science. In the 1996 TV movie, Apollo 11 Low was played by Dennis Lipscomb . In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon he was played by Holmes Osborne . Convair Convair , previously Consolidated Vultee ,

720-1011: The United States. In 1943, Low graduated from Forest Hills High School in Forest Hills, New York , and entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where he joined the Delta Phi fraternity . His college education was interrupted by the Second World War and from 1944 to 1946, he served in the United States Army . During his military service, he became a naturalized American citizen and legally changed his name to George Michael Low. After military service, Low returned to RPI and received his Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1948. He then worked at Convair in Fort Worth, Texas , as

756-594: The all- cryogenic fuel-oxidizer combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen . The use of this liquid hydrogen – liquid oxygen combination in the Centaur was an important direct precursor to the use of the same fuel-oxidizer combination in the Saturn S-II second stage and the Saturn S-IVB third stage of the gigantic Saturn V Moon rocket of the Apollo program . The S-IVB had earlier also been used as

SECTION 20

#1732782379709

792-572: The city's long aircraft-building tradition. The defense contractor once employed 18,000 people there, but after selling its divisions, that number is now zero. General Dynamics closed its complex in Kearny Mesa , demolishing the facility between 1994 and 1996. Homes and offices now occupy the site. The Lindbergh Field plant that produced B-24s during World War II was also demolished and the consolidated rental car facility now occupies this space. The Fort Worth, Texas factory, constructed to build

828-445: The company became a major subcontractor for airliner fuselages. The jets made their first flights on January 27, 1959 and January 24, 1961 respectively. 65 and 37 examples of the Convair 880 and Convair 990 were produced respectively. In 1994, most of the company's divisions were sold by General Dynamics to McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed , with the remaining components deactivated in 1996. Consolidated produced important aircraft in

864-516: The construction of 0.8-mile (1.3 km) of roadway and underground utilities including power, gas, water, sanitary and storm sewers and telephone. The first tenant was announced in March 1983, an optoelectronics facility for National Semiconductor. 1983–1991 saw the development of over 100 more acres, and the introduction of several more large companies. In July 1992 MetLife opened a 212,000 sq ft (19,700 m) computer center that serves as

900-486: The corporation's national disaster recovery site and computer software development headquarters. MapInfo moved to the park in 1993. MapInfo was founded by three RPI students after taking a course in Technological Entrepreneurship during which they produced their first business plan. The DeFreest Homestead is historic house and barn which was built around 1765 and located near the entrance of

936-494: The delta-winged B-58 Hustler supersonic intercontinental nuclear bomber were all Convair products. For a period of time in the 1960s, Convair manufactured its own line of jet commercial airliners, the Convair 880 and Convair 990 Coronado , but this did not turn out to be profitable. However, Convair found that it was profitable to be an aviation subcontractor and manufacture large subsections of airliners — such as fuselages — for

972-628: The early years of World War II , especially the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber and the PBY Catalina seaplane for the U.S. armed forces and their allies. Approximately 18,500 B-24s were produced by Consolidated and a number of major contractors across a number of versions; it holds records as the world's most-produced bomber, heavy bomber, multi-engine aircraft, and American military aircraft in history. The Catalina remained in production through May 1945, and more than 4,000 were built. What

1008-615: The formation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Low worked on a planning team to organize the new aerospace agency. Soon after NASA's formal organization in October 1958, Low transferred to the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he served as Chief of Manned Space Flight. In this capacity, he was closely involved in the planning of Projects Mercury , Gemini , and Apollo . Low played

1044-573: The head of the Fluid Mechanics Section (1954–1956) and chief of the Special Projects Branch (1956–1958). Low specialized in experimental and theoretical research in the fields of heat transfer, boundary layer flows, and internal aerodynamics. In addition, he worked on such space technology problems as orbit calculations, reentry paths, and space rendezvous techniques. During the summer and autumn of 1958, preceding

1080-474: The larger airliner companies, McDonnell Douglas , Boeing , and Lockheed . In the 1950s, Convair shifted money and effort to its missile and rocket projects, producing the Terrier missile ship-launched surface-to-air system for the U.S. Navy during the 1960s and 1970s. Convair's Atlas rocket , originally proposed in 1945 with a unique pressurized cylinder airframe, was revived in the 1950s as an ICBM for

1116-489: The park. The house and surrounding homestead were listed on The National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The Children's Museum of Science and Technology (CMOST) is the only science center in the Tech Valley designed specifically for kids and parents to Explore, Discover, and Imagine the world of science together. It features a digital dome planetarium, which shows digital educational movies including Molecularium

Rensselaer Technology Park - Misplaced Pages Continue

1152-799: The second stage of the smaller Saturn IB rocket, such as the one used to launch Apollo 7 . The Centaur upper stage was first designed and developed for launching the Surveyor lunar landers, beginning in 1966, to augment the delta-V of the Atlas rockets and give them enough payload capability to deliver the required mass of the Surveyors to the Moon . More than 100 Convair-produced Atlas-Centaur rockets (including those with their successor designations) were used to successfully launch over 100 satellites, and among their many other outer-space missions, they launched

1188-470: The space agency. However, another biography by space historian Michael J. Neufeld disputed Low's involvement in von Braun's resignation. Low's biography by Richard Jurek also disputes this account, indicating Low's efforts to try to retain and engage von Braun in strategic planning in the early 1970s and being pleased with von Braun's work. Retiring from NASA in 1976, Low became president of RPI. He held that position until his death in 1984. He initiated

1224-399: Was an American aircraft-manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft . The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft . In 1953, it was purchased by General Dynamics , and operated as their Convair Division for most of its corporate history. Convair is best known for its military aircraft; it produced aircraft such as

1260-718: Was an administrator at NASA and the 14th president of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . Low was one of the senior NASA officials who made decisions as manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office in the Apollo program of crewed missions to the Moon. Low was born near Vienna , Austria , to Artur and Gertrude Löw (née Burger), who had a prosperous manufacturing business, and was educated in private schools in Switzerland and England . His father died in 1934. When Nazi Germany occupied Austria in 1938, Low's family—being Jewish —emigrated to

1296-912: Was soon called "Convair" (first unofficially, and then officially), was created in 1943 by the merger of the Consolidated Aircraft Company and the Vultee Aircraft Company. This merger produced a large airplane company , ranked fourth among United States corporations by value of wartime production contracts, higher than the giants Douglas Aircraft , Boeing , and Lockheed . Convair always had most of its research, design, and manufacturing operations in San Diego County in Southern California , though surrounding counties participated as well, mostly as contractors to Convair. In March 1953, all of

#708291