Benjamin Paul Blasingame | |
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Born | State College, Pennsylvania, U.S. | 1 August 1919
Died | 13 November 2015 Kalispell, Montana, U.S. | (aged 96)
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Allegiance | ![]() |
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Years of service | 1941–1959 |
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Children | 4 |
Other work | Delco Electronics division of General Motors |
Benjamin Paul Blasingame (1 August 1919 – 13 November 2015) was a United States Air Force (USAF) officer and engineer who played an important role in the development of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and inertial navigation systems.
A 1940 graduate of Pennsylvania State College, he served with the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II. After the war he transferred to the USAF and earned a Doctor of Science degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Instrumentation Laboratory in 1950. In 1954 he was selected by Colonel Bernard A. Schriever to join the Western Development Division, which oversaw its development of the Atlas ICBM. As the Chief Guidance and Control Project Officer, Blasingame advocated the use of inertial navigation systems in ICBMs, He was the manager of the HGM-25A Titan I ICBM project from 1956 to 1958, and the first head of the department of astronautics at the United States Air Force Academy from 1958 to 1959.
In 1959 Blasingame, resigned his commission and joined the AC Spark Plug division of General Motors, which later became Delco Electronics. He helped develop the inertial navigation system for the Titan II ICBM, which became the Delco Carousel navigation system, and also found use in the Boeing 747, C-5A Galaxy, C-141 Starlifter and KC-135 tanker. AC Sparkplug built the navigation systems used by the Apollo spacecraft and the Lunar Roving Vehicle that saw service on the Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions.