e lead developer of the satellite recovery vehicle -- the first man-made object to return from Earth orbit. The design had to withstand many known and unknown difficulties: hostile loads during launch, acoustic noise during exit from the atmosphere, vacuum and low temperatures in orbit, and high temperatures and vibrations during re-entry. Above all, the re-entry vehicle had to overcome these technical hurdles well enough to protect the precious film canister it carried. The vehicle's final feat was to deploy its parachutes, jettison the heat shield, and transmit its location so that an aircraft could snatch it in midair and bring it safely to Earth.
JAMES W. PLUMMER was the Corona Program Manager at Lockheed and the leader of the engineering effort and its management process. The Corona project represented a heroic achievement that was executed within 16 months, with great national urgency, and in extreme secrecy, by a multidisciplinary, multiorganizational engineering team.
THE FRITZ J. AND DOLORES H. RUSS PRIZE
LELAND C. CLARK JR., former University Distinguished Service Professor and Professor Emeritus, University of Cincinnati, was one of the founders of Synthetic Blood International Inc. Considered the "father of biosensors," he invented the first device to rapidly determine the amount of glucose in blood. Today many of the 18.2 million Americans with diabetes rely on Clark's original glucose sensor concept for self-monitoring. In the future, an implantable biosensor -- newly patented by Clark -- could make blood glucose monitoring even easier by sending readings whenever needed.
The Clark oxygen electrode, which he invented in 1954, remains the standard for measuring dissolved oxygen in biomedical, environmental, and industrial applications. The electrode quickly measures blood oxygen levels, enabling doctors to perform 750,000 open-heart surgeries each year. Oxygen monitoring is now a requiremen
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Contact: Randy Atkins
atkins@nae.edu
202-334-1508
The National Academies
21-Feb-2005
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