Charles Stark Draper

Charles Stark Draper, known as Doc Draper, was an American scientist and engineer, born in 1901 and died in 1987, widely called the father of inertial navigation for his pioneering work on self-contained guidance systems that determine a vehicle's position without external reference signals. He founded and directed MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, later renamed the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in his honor, developing lead-computing gunsights for aircraft during the Second World War before extending inertial guidance to missiles and computerized autopilots. He directed development of the Apollo Guidance Computer, which controlled lunar module navigation on nine Apollo missions and guided six successful crewed Moon landings, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1981.