Michael Lampton

Michael Logan Lampton (born March 1, 1941) was an American astronaut, founder of the optical ray tracing company Stellar Software, and known for his paper on electroacoustics with Susan M Lea, The theory of maximally flat loudspeaker systems.[1]

Michael L. Lampton
Born(1941-03-01)March 1, 1941
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, U.S.
DiedJune 9, 2023(2023-06-09) (aged 82)
Berkeley, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Physicist, Space Sciences Laboratory
Space career
UC Berkeley Payload Specialist
MissionsSTS-9, STS-45
Mission insignia

Personal life

Lampton was born March 1, 1941, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.[2] In 1961, while Lampton was attending Caltech he was one of the "Fiendish Fourteen", 14 students responsible for the Great Rose Bowl Hoax. He was married to San Francisco State University physicist, Susan M. Lea,[3] and they had one daughter, Jennifer Lea Lampton.[4]

Education

SuperNova Acceleration Probe (SNAP) Project

Lampton was heavily involved with the SNAP project.[5] SNAP, the Supernova/Acceleration Probe, was to study exploding stars called supernovae, as well as the gentle smearing of the light from distant galaxies due to gravity — called weak gravitational lensing — and put limits on what may or may not be the force driving the outward pull on the Universe. SNAP was to investigate over one thousand square degrees of sky with a 500 megapixel camera.[6]

SNAP was part of the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), a cooperative venture between NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy. SNAP collaborators John Mather and George Smoot were awarded the 2006 Nobel prize in physics.[7] The SNAP was superseded by the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST).[8], and now the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope – or Roman Space Telescope, – a NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The telescope was initially developed as the WFIRST, and renamed in 2020 to honor Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. Roman has been called the “mother” of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.[9]

Career with NASA

Lampton was a NASA payload specialist from 1978 to 1992.[2] Below is a list of the missions he was a part of.

YearMissionPosition
1983STS-9/Columbiaselected and served as backup payload specialist[10]
1985STS-51-H/Spacelab EOM 1 missionselected as payload specialist (mission cancelled after the technical problems)
1986STS-61-K/Spacelab EOM 1-2 missionselected as payload specialist (mission cancelled after the Challenger accident)[11]
1989STS-45/ATLAS-1selected as payload specialist (the same mission as STS-61K—but renamed), replaced by backup payload specialist Dirk Frimout due to medical problems [12]

Death

Michael Lampton died in Berkeley, California, on Friday, 9 June 2023, at the age of 82 years.[13]

References
  1. Lea, S.; Lampton, M. (1972). "The theory of maximally flat loudspeaker systems". IEEE Transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics. ieeexplore.ieee.org. 20 (3): 200–203. doi:10.1109/TAU.1972.1162374.
  2. Joachim Becker. "Astronaut Biography: Michael Lampton". spacefacts.de. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  3. Dr. Susan Lea https://physics.sfsu.edu/people/susan-lea}}
  4. https://drsusanlea.com/bio.html
  5. Lampton, M; Collaboration, SNAP (2002). "[astro-ph/0209549] The SNAP Telescope". arXiv:astro-ph/0209549.
  6. "SNAP". Archived from the original on 2013-07-03. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  7. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  8. Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope| https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/missions/wfirst/
  9. What is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope? https://www.space.com/nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope
  10. "home/hqnews/1990/90-072". nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  11. "flights/sts61k". astronautix.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2002. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  12. "NASA - ATLAS-1: The First Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science". nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  13. https://obituaries.neptune-society.com/obituaries/oakland-ca/michael-lampton-11332070
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