Peter Eduard Glaser

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Peter Eduard Glaser (born September 5, 1923 in Saaz , Czechoslovakia , † May 29, 2014 in Lexington , Massachusetts , United States ) was an American engineer and aerospace engineer from Bohemia .

Life

Peter Eduard Glaser came from a Jewish family from Saaz. He was the son of Hugo and Helen Glaser, b. White. His middle name refers to his great uncle Eduard Glaser , who was an important Arabist and archaeologist. Shortly before the Munich Agreement on the annexation of the Sudetenland to the German Reich in 1938, he emigrated with his family to England. In 1943 he graduated in Leeds at a technical university (Leeds College of Technology). Then he joined the Czechoslovak Army . After the war he finished his studies at the Charles University in Prague in 1947 . Shortly after the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, he emigrated to the USA, where he continued his studies and graduated from Columbia University with a doctorate in 1955 . completed. He became an American citizen in 1954. In autumn 1955 he married the émigré Eva F. Graf and had three children with her. He had obviously taken over his hobby "Archeology in southern Arabia" from his great uncle Eduard Glaser.

Professional Activities

While still a student, he headed the project planning department at Werner Textile Consultants (1949–1953) in New York City . PE Glaser spent his entire professional life from 1955 to 1994 in the management consultancy Arthur D. Little , Cambridge (Massachusetts) , from 1985 to 1994 as Vice President for Advanced Technology , then from 1994 to 2005 he worked as a consultant for the company. Glaser had been retired since 2005. All of his professional papers and some of his personal papers are on file in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) library .

Project participation

In the Apollo program , Peter Glaser played a key role as project manager for the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR). This was first installed on July 20, 1969 by the Apollo 11 crew and two others during the following lunar missions Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 on the lunar surface. These reflectors allow an accurate measurement of the distance between the earth and the moon and are still used today.

Then Glaser turned his attention to the use of sunlight as an energy source. He wanted to use the possibilities of cosmic solar energy for so-called solar energy satellites (Space-based solar power - SBSP). He developed a concept for these devices back in 1968 and a patent in 1973. The project envisaged a solar power plant to be installed in a geostationary orbit at an altitude of about 36,000 km above the equator, where the sunlight could be used almost without interruption by the day-night change.

He was also responsible for the Apollo heat flux probe Lunar and the Lunar Surface Gravimeter (LSG). In January 1986 the Space Shuttle Columbia STS-61-C mission was launched, in which Glaser was involved, u. a. through experiments on blood storage and the influence of gravitational effects on blood cells.

Glaser later worked on other scientific tasks for shuttle missions. Glaser developed his ideas in design teams at Boeing and later at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), the US Department of Energy and NASA .

Scientific studies

Glaser's scientific activities included the following areas:

Memberships

Glaser was a member of many scientific committees and institutions and consultant to NASA (1963–67). Glaser served as an advisor to the National Research Council (1960–62) and was a member of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (1993–96). He was a member of the International Institute of Refrigeration (1959–72), the National Academy of Sciences (1958) and its Solar Energy Study Group (1971–85), a member of the American Solar Energy Society and its President (1967–72) and Solar Power Satellite Advisory Panel of the Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress (1980–81).

Glaser was a member and director of the American Space Agency (1977-84). In 1978 he created the Sunsat Energy Council , an NGO on the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations , and served as its President (1978-94) and Chairman (1994-2000). He was a member of the International Astronautical Federation and chaired the Space Power Committee (1984-89). He was a member of the National Space Society and the senior group at the Space Studies Institute (1990-2005). He was a voting member of Columbia University's Engineering Council (1984) and a consultant for Space Power Research, Japan (1998-2005). He was president of Power from Space Consultants from 1994 to 2005 and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the International Academy of Astronautics .

Publications

Glaser has published more than 800 scientific papers and a number of books. He was the editor and editor-in-chief of various scientific journals, including editor of the Journal of Solar Energy (1972–1985), co-editor of the Space Power Journal (1980–1986) and a member of the editorial team of Space Policy , Space Power , Journal of Practical Applications in space and solar energy . He was the guest editor of the special edition Space in Policy for the section "Solar Energy from Space". Glaser was editor of The Lunar Surface Layer (1964), Thermal Imaging Techniques (1964), Solar Power Satellites - The Emerging Energy Option (1993), Solar Power Satellites - A Space Energy System for Earth (1998) and of Solar Power Systems in Space , he also edited the standard Handbook of Powerplant Engineering (1998).

Honors

Glaser belonged to the American scientific elite. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Carl F. Kayan Medal from Columbia University in 1974 for contributions in the field of engineering. He received the Farrington Daniels Award from the International Solar Energy Society in 1983 . In 1993 the International Astronautical Federation invited Peter Glaser to give a plenary lecture at its annual meeting. He was inducted into the Space Foundation 's Hall of Fame for Space Technology in 1996 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/pdf/mc569.pdf Peter E. Glaser Archive
  2. ↑ http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/exhibits/glaser/ Mond-Laser-Reflektor
  3. ↑ http://chview.nova.org/station/sps.htm Solar power satellites
  4. ↑ Rechcigl jr., Miloslav: Czech American Timeline - Chronology of Milestones in the History of Czechs in America. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse LLC, 2013, p. 398
  5. ↑ http://www.spacefoundation.org/programs/space-technology-hall-fame Hall of Fame for Space Technology
personal data
SURNAME Glaser, Peter Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Glaser, Peter Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American engineer and aerospace engineer
DATE OF BIRTH September 5, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Saaz , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 2014
Place of death Lexington , Massachusetts , United States