John C Houbolt 1919-2014

摘要

One of the most innovative and original thinkers among the fraternity of aerospace engineers of his time, John Cornelius Houbolt was born on 10 April 1919 in Altoona Iowa. Keenly fond of mathematics from the outset, Houbolt attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and obtained a degree in civil engineering in 1942, in which year he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory. John Houbolt had humble origins. As a farm boy he lacked the wherewithal to get the toys he craved and taught the son of a wealthy family so that he could play with the child's Erector Sets in return. Self motivated and with a knack of seeing the obvious solutions to problems that held back many of his peers, he was quiet and unassuming but tenacious and stubborn.