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Curated playlist

20th-century American engineers

  • Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein once spent his days examining patents for gravel sorters.
  • Nikola TeslaNikola Tesla spent his last decades claiming he had built a death beam. He said it could stop an army 200 miles away.
  • Elon MuskIn 2001, Elon Musk traveled to Moscow twice to buy missiles, hoping to launch a plant greenhouse to Mars.
  • Roger B. ChaffeeRoger Chaffee passed his Navy pilot's eye exam only because a doctor let him retake it the next morning.
  • Ed White (astronaut)Ed White floated out of his capsule in 1965 and did not want to come back. He was the first American to walk in space.
  • Stuart RoosaStuart Roosa orbited the Moon 34 times alone while two crewmates walked on it. He also carried tree seeds in his pocket.
  • Gus GrissomDoctors nearly cut Gus Grissom from astronaut selection because he had hay fever.
  • Alan ShepardAn inner ear disease grounded astronaut Alan Shepard for years before he walked on the Moon.
  • Thomas EdisonThomas Edison clamped his teeth into a piano to hear it. He was deaf in one ear and barely heard from the other.
  • Jon KleinbergJon Kleinberg found that a web page can matter because of where it sends you.
  • Jack SwigertJack Swigert won a seat in Congress but died seven days before he could take it. The Apollo 13 astronaut was 51.
  • Neil ArmstrongNeil Armstrong's astronaut application came about a week late, until a colleague slipped it into the pile.
  • Robert SeamansRobert Channing Seamans Jr. sat down for his last television interview in the autumn of 2007, speaking about the guidance and navigation system that helped carry Apollo astronauts to the Moon. He did not see it aired. The episode of the…
  • David ScottDavid Scott dropped a hammer and a feather on the Moon. The Apollo 15 commander did it on live television.
  • Henry FordHenry Ford's Model T came in black because black paint dried quickest. Earlier Model Ts also came in red.
  • Robert R. GilruthWhen Kennedy promised a Moon landing, Robert Gilruth was aghast.
  • Thomas J. Kelly (aerospace engineer)Ice clogged a fuel line on the Moon lander while Neil Armstrong was already on the surface.
  • Wright brothersThe Wright brothers' 1903 patent did not claim an airplane. It claimed a system for controlling one.
  • Arthur Samuel (computer scientist)Arthur Samuel's checkers program moved IBM's stock up 15 points in a single night. He coined "machine learning" in 1959.
  • Deke SlaytonOne heart test grounded astronaut Deke Slayton in 1962. He then picked the crews who flew to the Moon.
  • Hans Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein's son Hans Albert became a river engineer, not a physicist. He studied how rivers carry sediment.
  • Samuel C. PhillipsSamuel C. Phillips froze the Minuteman missile's design knowing its range was 1,000 miles short.
  • Claude ShannonClaude Shannon built a mechanical mouse that learned its way through a maze. He named the 1950 machine Theseus.
  • Joseph Francis SheaJoe Shea's 1962 analysis steered NASA toward its Moon landing plan. He had joined the agency only months earlier.
  • James IrwinAfter walking on the Moon, astronaut James Irwin spent years searching for Noah's Ark.
  • William AndersWilliam Anders fled Japanese bombers as a boy, then photographed Earth from the Moon.
  • Jensen HuangJensen Huang founded Nvidia in a Denny's booth, where he once worked as a dishwasher. Three engineers pooled $600.
  • Ronald Evans (astronaut)Ronald Evans is the last person to orbit the Moon alone. He circled it 75 times while two crewmates walked below.
  • Harrison StormsAfter the Apollo 1 fire, NASA demanded that North American remove Harrison Storms. His boss chose to reassign him.
  • Jerome WiesnerJerome Wiesner, Kennedy's science advisor, told Wernher von Braun "No, that's no good" in front of the press.
  • Igor SikorskyA mosquito in a fuel tank changed Igor Sikorsky's career. The crash-landing made him want an aircraft that could fly on.
  • Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun's V-2 rocket cost more lives to build than it took as a weapon.
  • Cynthia DworkA technique built to make junk email costly later helped make bitcoin possible. Cynthia Dwork co-created it.
  • Maxime FagetEngineer Max Faget decided a spacecraft returning from orbit should look nothing like an aircraft.
  • Abe SilversteinAbe Silverstein, a NASA engineer, gave the Apollo program its name. He chose a Greek and Roman god of light and the sun.
  • Wat MisakaWat Misaka played for the New York Knicks in 1947, then quit basketball to become an engineer.
  • Grace HopperGrace Hopper hung a clock on her office wall that ran counterclockwise. She wanted code in plain English.
  • John G. TrumpJohn G. Trump died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 21st of February 1985, six days before a White House ceremony in his honor. His son John Jr. accepted the National Medal of Science on his behalf. President Ronald Reagan had awarded…

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