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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 126 - Virtual - March 2021
Agenda Location	6 SUBCOMMITTEE B – MISSILES AND SPACE 6.3 Dr. Richard Battin: Inventing and Applying Modern Space Guidance While Also Being a Moral Compass
Title	Dr. Richard Battin: Inventing and Applying Modern Space Guidance While Also Being a Moral Compass
Presenter	Phil Hattis
Affiliation	Draper
Available Downloads*	presentation
	Downloads are available to members who are logged in and either Active* or attended this meeting.
Abstract	All but two years of Richard “Dick” Battin’s career were spent at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (IL), its successor The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc, and teaching MIT graduate students. He intuited solutions to complex dynamics problems, then applied new techniques to address their computational challenges. His focus was development of precision missile and spacecraft guidance. Late 1950s work by Dr. Battin, Dr. J. Halcombe Laning, and Milton Trageser on the design of a spacecraft capable of a round trip Earth-to-Mars mission became the basis for the IL’s 1961 selection to develop the Apollo Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) system. Battin then led development of the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) software. The extraordinary AGC software challenges included fitting all Apollo GN&C functionality within the 38K 16-bit word memory while enabling real-time execution despite a 12 micro-second cycle time. The AGC software met all objectives for all Apollo missions. Battin’s leadership, insights, and collaboration with a brilliant supporting staff enabled this success. He was also a person of strong personal convictions, serving as a moral compass for many. He profoundly believed in and practiced participatory democracy, and led a foundation to facilitate adoption of special needs children.