Michael Lampton

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Michael L. Lampton
Michael Lampton, Astronaut.jpg
Born (1941-03-01) March 1, 1941 (age 80)
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
OccupationPhysicist, Space Sciences Laboratory
Space career
UC Berkeley Payload Specialist
MissionsSTS-9, STS-45
Mission insignia
Sts-9-patch.pngSts-45-patch.png

Michael Logan Lampton (born March 1, 1941) is 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]

Personal[]

Lampton was born March 1, 1941 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.[2] He is married to San Francisco State University physicist, Dr. Susan M. Lea, with whom he has one daughter, Jennifer Lea Lampton.[3]

Education[]

SNAP Project[]

Lampton has been heavily involved with the SNAP project.[4] SNAP, the Supernova/Acceleration Probe, will 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 will investigate over one thousand square degrees of sky with a 500 megapixel camera.[5]

SNAP is part of the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM), which is 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.[6]

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.

Year Mission Position
1983 STS-9/Columbia selected and served as backup payload specialist[7]
1985 STS-51-H/Spacelab EOM 1 mission selected as payload specialist (mission cancelled after the technical problems)
1986 STS-61-K/Spacelab EOM 1-2 mission selected as payload specialist (mission cancelled after the Challenger accident)[8]
1989 STS-45/ATLAS-1 selected as payload specialist (the same mission as STS-61K—but renamed), replaced by backup payload specialist Dirk Frimout due to medical problems [9]

Pranks[]

In 1961, while Lampton was attending Caltech he was one of the "Fiendish Fourteen", 14 students responsible for the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.

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. ^ Jump up to: a b Joachim Becker. "Astronaut Biography: Michael Lampton". spacefacts.de. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  3. ^ http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~lea/bio.html
  4. ^ Lampton, M; Collaboration, SNAP (2002). "[astro-ph/0209549] The SNAP Telescope". arXiv:astro-ph/0209549.
  5. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-07-03. Retrieved 2013-07-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006". nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  7. ^ "home/hqnews/1990/90-072". nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  8. ^ "flights/sts61k". astronautix.com. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  9. ^ "NASA - ATLAS-1: The First Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science". nasa.gov. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
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