7 Charles Stark Draper 7

Charles Stark Draper

(b. Oct. 2, 1901, Windsor, Mo., U.S.—d. July 25, 1987, Cambridge, Mass.)

C

harles Stark Draper was an American aeronautical

engineer, educator, and science administrator whose

laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT) was a centre for the design of navigational and

guidance systems for ships, airplanes, and missiles from

World War II through the Cold War. Combining basic

research and student training and supported by a network

of corporate and military sponsors, Draper’s laboratory

was one of the proving grounds for post-World War II

Big Science.

Draper received a B.A. in psychology from Stanford

University in 1922. He then enrolled at MIT and earned a

B.S. in electrochemical engineering in 1926. He remained at

MIT to do graduate work in physics and soon demonstrated

his precocity as both a researcher and entrepreneur. As

a graduate student he became a national expert on aero-

nautical and meteorological research instruments. The

Instruments Laboratory (I-Lab), which he founded in 1934,

became a centre for both academic and commercial

research, a combination that was not unusual at the time.

It was through the I-Lab that Draper established a relation-

ship with the Sperry Gyroscope Company (now part of

Unisys Corporation). Though they would later become com-

petitors, Sperry provided critical support for the fledgling

laboratory and jobs for Draper’s graduate students. Draper

also operated a consulting business that further extended

his academic and industrial connections. Appointed to

the MIT faculty in 1935, he was promoted to professor

after receiving his Doctor of Science degree in 1938.

With the start of World War II, Draper turned to

developing antiaircraft weapons. The airplane had emerged