H. Guyford Stever

24 OCTOBER 1916 · 9 APRIL 2010HORTON GUYFORD STEVER, known to all as Guy, for- mer chief science adviser to Presidents Richard M. Nixon . and Gerald R. Ford, chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force, president of Carnegie Mellon University, director of the National Sci- ence Foundation, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, and head of the department of mechanical engineering at MIT, died on 9 April 2010 at the age of ninety-three. As a scientific administrator he had a transformative influence on the direction of the U.S. space program, the formation of NASA, and science education and basic research in the United States during its unparalleled expansion in the second half of the twentieth century.Guy was born on 24 October 1916 in Corning, New York. His par- ents died when he was a very young boy; he and his sister, Margarette, were raised by their grandparents. He received his undergraduate edu- cation at Colgate University, from which he was awarded an A.B., summa cum laude, in physics in 1938. He took the Ph.D. in physics, magna cum laude, from the California Institute of Technology in 1941.Following receipt of his doctorate he was recruited to work on the development of enhanced radars at the MIT Radiation Laboratory. In the fall of 1942 Guy was asked by Lee DuBridge, the director of the laboratory, if he was interested in joining the London mission of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) for radar liai- son with the British. He leapt at the opportunity because he wanted to "get closer to the real war." He remained with OSRD until the end of the war in 1945, experiencing and learning much about the German V-l and V-2 missiles.After the war he returned to MIT, where he was involved with proj- ects dealing with the status of U.S. guided missile programs. In 1946 he became an assistant professor of aeronautical engineering (now aero- nautics and astronautics). He immersed himself in the study and teach- ing of transonic and hypersonic flow and other aspects of aeronautical engineering in addition to guided missiles. In 1949 he became fasci- nated with the idea of hypersonic flight and involved himself with the design of hypersonic wind tunnels for operation at flow speeds seven times the speed of sound or greater. One difficulty with such tunnels is that the air is expanded so greatly that its temperature drops to values low enough to condense the nitrogen and oxygen. At the time, I was a graduate student at Princeton University, working on the theory of nu- cleation of air at low temperatures and high flow speeds in connection with the design of hypersonic wind tunnels. Because of our related ac- tivities I met Guy at Princeton on a couple of occasions, and from that time on we became lasting friends throughout our lives. Guy was then taking on administrative positions and had told me in one of our meet- ings that he had decided to move entirely in that direction. I argued against his doing that, but it became clear very quickly that it was a wise decision. Guy was a superlative administrator who was always quick to understand a problem at hand and just as quick to bring in the right people to solve it. Over the years I saw him on many occasions in the midst of exceedingly contentious situations. He always spoke calmly and was never ruffled. Through his leadership scientific groups invariably came to the correct scientific conclusions and almost always to politically acceptable ones.Guy was associate dean of engineering at MIT from 1956 to 1959, though in 1955-56 he took leave to become chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force. Sputnik I was launched in October 1957. In part because of his role as chief scientist, he chaired the Special Committee on Space Technology of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which had been formed with the mandate to coordinate United States expertise in order to develop a space program. The panel results played a key role in the formation from NACA of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), established in 1958. …