Charles Stark Draper

Charles Stark "Doc" Draper (October 2, 1901 – July 25, 1987) was an American scientist and engineer, known as the "father of inertial navigation". 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. Provided by Wikipedia