Arthur Robert Kantrowitz was an American scientist, engineer, and educator.
18 Facts About Arthur Kantrowitz
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Arthur Kantrowitz was born in New York City on October 28,1913.
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Arthur Kantrowitz's mother was a costume designer and his father ran a clinic in the Bronx.
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Arthur Kantrowitz went on to teach at Cornell University for the next ten years and later founded the Avco-Everett Research Lab in Everett, Massachusetts, in 1955.
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Arthur Kantrowitz developed shock tubes, which were able to produce the extremely hot gases needed to simulate atmospheric re-entry from orbital speeds, thereby solving the critical nose cone re-entry heating problem and accelerating the development of recoverable spacecraft.
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Arthur Kantrowitz was AERL's director, chief executive officer, and chairman until 1978 when he took on a professorship at Dartmouth College.
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Arthur Kantrowitz first suggested a system of laser propulsion to launch bulk payloads into orbit, using energy from ground-based lasers to increase exhaust velocity and thereby reduce the propellant-to-payload mass ratio.
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Arthur Kantrowitz invented the total energy variometer in 1939, used in soaring planes, and is the co-inventor of an early scheme for magnetically contained nuclear fusion, patent application, 1941.
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Arthur Kantrowitz tried to convince Kennedy's people that the best way to the Moon was through development of manned space access, a von Braun manned space station, and on to the Moon in a logical way that left developed space assets.
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Arthur Kantrowitz is known for development of a theoretical concept of fluid choke points at supersonic and near-supersonic inlet velocities.
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The Arthur Kantrowitz limit has many applications in the gas dynamics of inlet flow for jet engines and rockets, both when operating at high-subsonic and supersonic velocities.
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Arthur Kantrowitz was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Astronautical Society, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Physical Society, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and member of the National Academy of Engineering and United States National Academy of Sciences and International Academy of Astronautics.
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Arthur Kantrowitz was an honorary trustee of the University of Rochester, an honorary life member of the Board of Governors of The Technion, and an honorary professor of the Huazhong Institute of Technology, Wuhan, China.
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Arthur Kantrowitz served on the Board of Advisors for the Foresight Institute, an organization devoted to preparing for nanotechnology.
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Arthur Kantrowitz held 21 patents and wrote or co-authored more than 200 scientific and professional papers and articles.
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Arthur Kantrowitz co-authored Fundamentals of Gas Dynamics, 1958, Princeton Univ.
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Arthur Kantrowitz died at age 95, November 29,2008, while visiting relatives in New York.
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Arthur Kantrowitz had suffered a heart attack on the previous day.