Homer J. Stewart
1916 – 2007
Homer Stewart
(PhD ’40), a pioneer of rocket research who helped develop Explorer
I, America’s first satellite to reach orbit, died May 26 at his
home in Altadena, California. He was 91.
A native
of Dubuque, Iowa, Stewart earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering
from the University of Minnesota in 1936 and then came to Caltech as a
graduate student in Engineering and Applied Science. He became interested
in the rocketry work being done on campus by a small group of Caltech
engineers and scientists, chief among them Theodore von Kármán.
Stewart, von Kármán, and others began testing rockets in
a rugged foothill area of the San Gabriel Mountains about five miles northeast
of campus—a group of people and a site that would later become the
heart of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Stewart joined
the Caltech faculty in 1939, one year before completing his PhD in aeronautics.
He taught both aeronautics and meteorology while also conducting research
at JPL. His research interests included the rocket-exhaust velocity requirements
for lifting a spacecraft into orbit and maintaining its trajectory. He
also used his knowledge of fluid flow to explore wind-driven energy. In
the late 1930s, he and von Kármán built a wind turbine on
a summit known as Grandpa’s Knob in the mountains of Vermont. The
machine generated up to a megawatt of power, and operated through World
War II in cooperation with a local electrical company. The project was
abandoned after the war, in part because fossil fuel became so available
and cheap.
As chief
of JPL’s research analysis section, Stewart participated in many
rocket projects, including the WAC Corporal, the Corporal, the Sergeant,
and the Jupiter C. He was the chief of JPL’s liquid propulsion systems
division when JPL and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (now the Marshall
Space Flight Center) developed and launched Explorer I in January 1958.
During a
two-year leave at the just-formed NASA, he served as director of planning
and evaluation, and recommended what would become the Apollo missions
to the moon. He also suggested Cape Canaveral as the launching site for
putting rockets into orbit. He received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal
in 1970.
Stewart served
on the Caltech faculty until his retirement in 1980.
He is survived by two daughters, Barbara Mogel of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland,
and Kay Stewart of San Diego; a son, Dr. Robert J. Stewart of Burien,
Washington; two sisters; a brother; and two grandchildren.
