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John V. Breakwell: Astrodynamicist and friend
Acta Astronautica Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 481-483, 1993 Printed in Great Britain.All rights reserved
0094-5765/93 $6.00+ 0.00 Copyright © 1993PergamonPress Ltd
Academy Transactions Note JOHN V. BREAKWELL: ASTRODYNAMICIST A N D F R I E N D t JOZEF C. VAN DER HA ESA/European Space Operations Centre, 5 Robert-Bosch-Strasse, 6100 Darmstadt, Germany (Endorsed by J.-P. MAREC:~;received 4 May 1992)
Abstract--This Note is based on a presentation made at the special session "Tribute to John Breakwell" of the 42nd IAF Congress (Montreal, 7-11 October 1991) recalling in turn the curriculum, the professional recognition, the major contributions, the IAF involvement and the friendship qualities of this outstanding Astrodynamicist. i. SUMMARY
2. VITA
After a long fight with cancer, Professor Breakwell (Fig. 1) passed away on 16 April 1991 at the age of 73. His death amounts to a great loss to the worldwide Astrodynamics community, both from a professional and from a personal point of view. He is rightfully considered to be one of the last few remaining pioneers in the field of Astrodynamics. His ideas and enthusiasm have inspired and guided directly and indirectly the whole present generation of workers in the field of Astrodynamics. The present Note intends to highlight a few of his many professional attributes and to recall some of his remarkable personal characteristics for which his friends will always remember him.
After receiving a B.A. degree from Oxford University in the U.K. in 1939, he emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1941 where he lectured at Tufts University while working on his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics (received in 1947) at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Afterwards, he went on to industry in 1949, first as a Research Specialist at North American Aviation and, subsequently, as a senior Staff Scientist at Lockheed Missiles & Space in 1957. The first opportunity to become active in the area of satellite dynamics was offered to him in about 1956 when he started work on rocket dynamics problems. At Lockheed, in the late fifties, he originated his pioneering contributions to the field of optimal space trajectories culminating in his classical papers [1,2]. In 1964, he was appointed Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. He was still active as Emeritus Professor at Stanford at the time of his death. Throughout his 27 years at Stanford he has been able to conduct an original and extremely productive research programme. He has educated a large number of students, many of whom have become established and respected leaders in the field of Astrodynamics in their own right.
3. PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION
Fig. 1. •['Presented at the special session "Tribute to John Breakwell (1917-1991)" of the 42nd Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Montreal, Canada, 7-11 October 1991. :I:IAA Member, Section 2.
Professor Breakwell was extremely humble and he always played down the importance of his achievements. He was also sincerely disinterested in professional awards and recognition: for him, the enjoyment of actually doing research and the associated interactions with his students and colleagues was of prime importance. It is a tribute to the high quality of his work that he did receive due recognition in the form of a number of prestigious awards from professional societies in the U.S.A. for instance:
481
482
JOZEFC. VAN Dm~HA
- - C o n t r o l Heritage Award from the American Automatic Control Council (1984) - - D i r k Brouwer Award from the American Astronautical Society (1973) --Mechanics & Control of Flight Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (1972) He was elected in the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1981. In 1977, he received a Humboldt fellowship which allowed him to spend a year at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany. It was during this period that I had the pleasure to be in close contact with him; I learned to admire his virtuosity in all aspects of Astrodynamics as well as to enjoy his friendly and easy-going way of socializing with anyone who happened to be around. His lectures covered both the classical Celestial Mechanics roots of Astrodynamics and the latest developments in the field of satellite dynamics. He was capable, through his enthusiastic and convincing style of lecturing, to convey the impression that it was all extremely straightforward and simple. Only when trying some of the material on his own, the listener would painfully become aware of the many pitfalls John had so skilfully avoided.
4. HIS MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS
John had wide professional interests (also outside the field of Astrodynamics) and he always preferred the enjoyment of research above the tedium of preparing a paper for Journal publication. Because of the small number of comprehensive Journal papers (relative to the many original results he produced), it is problematic to categorize and summarize his work in a fair manner. The following list should therefore be seen within these limitations; however, it is still indicative of the wide range of topics in which he was capable of offering lasting contributions to the Astrodynamics community: ---Optimization of Trajectories [1,2] --Matching of Interplanetary Trajectories [3-5] --Satellite Perturbation Theories - - H a l o Orbits and Stability of the Three-Body Problem ---Control of Tethered Satellites - - T h e o r y and Applications of Guidance and Control --Pursuit and Evasion Problems in Differential Games. Professor Breakwell was active in and made substantial contributions to essentially all modern theoretical areas of Astrodynamics. In addition, he was keenly interested and alert to space applications and worked on a number of actual and proposed satellite projects, such as Gravity Probe B as well as X-ray astronomy and relativity missions.
5. IAF INVOLVEMENT
Professor Breakwell has been a respected member of the I A F Astrodynamics Committee since 1985. His humour, his authority and his gift for sound judgement will be missed in future Committee activities. He chaired the Natural Trajectories Session of the I A F Astrodynamics Symposium for many years: attendants will remember his convincing presentations of papers written by authors who were unable to participate in the Symposium (in particular, Soviet authors). Often he was able to add new material to these contributions when preparing the presentation during the one or two days before the Session. He enjoyed the I A F Astrodynamics Sessions tremendously and even in his later years he did not miss any of them. He remained receptive to and excited about new ideas and his questions were always relevant and never derogatory, not even in cases where he knew that better contributions already existed in the literature.
6. JOHN: THE FRIEND
John Breakwell was extremely easy to get along with and most people immediately felt at ease with him: his humorous and anecdotal style of conversation was always interesting and carried a relaxed atmosphere with it. He never got upset about anything and his wits and flexibility kept him out of any difficulties he could have gotten into by some lack of organizational rigor. John had wide interests outside his work, e.g. music, sports, politics, and hiking. During his last I A F Conference in Dresden in October 1990 he managed to entertain the people who happened to be present in the large reception hall by playing the "Blue Danube Waltz" on a piano he had found tucked away under a staircase. Personally, I have been on a number of overnight hikes with him in the Alps and Pyrenees and came to admire his good physical condition and his continually good spirits, Even at the age of 68 he was sufficiently strong and determined to ascend (and descend again) from the Koenigssee near Berchtesgarden in Southern Germany up to the Riemannhaus above Saalfelden in Austria: a net altitude difference of about 1600m. John's many friends all over the world will miss his pleasant character, his humour, his jovial presence, his sincere advice, and his great wisdom not only in professional matters. We feel grateful to have had the good fortune to have known him and to have profited in so many ways from his remarkable talents.
REFERENCES 1. J. V. Breakwe|], The optimization of trajectories. J. Soc, lndust, appl. Math. 7, 215-247 (1959).
John V. Breakwell 2. J. V. Breakwell, Minimum impulse transfer. Progress in Astronautics & Aeronautics, Vol. 17 (Edited by V. G. Szebehely), pp. 583-590. Academic Press, New York (1964). 3. J. V. Breakwell and L. M. Perko, Matched asymptotic expansions, patched conics, and the computation of interplanetary trajectories. Progress in Astronautics & Aeronautics, Vol. 17 (Edited by R. L. Duncombe and
483
V. G. Szebehely), pp. 159-182. Academic Press, New York (1966). 4. J. V. Breakwell and L. M. Perko, Second-order matching in the restricted three-body problem. Celestial Mech. 9, 437-450 (1974). 5. J. V. Breakwell, Asymptotic matching for interplanetary flybys. Rocky Mountain J. Math. 8, 515-525 (1976).
0094-5765/93 $6.00+ 0.00 Copyright © 1993PergamonPress Ltd
Academy Transactions Note JOHN V. BREAKWELL: ASTRODYNAMICIST A N D F R I E N D t JOZEF C. VAN DER HA ESA/European Space Operations Centre, 5 Robert-Bosch-Strasse, 6100 Darmstadt, Germany (Endorsed by J.-P. MAREC:~;received 4 May 1992)
Abstract--This Note is based on a presentation made at the special session "Tribute to John Breakwell" of the 42nd IAF Congress (Montreal, 7-11 October 1991) recalling in turn the curriculum, the professional recognition, the major contributions, the IAF involvement and the friendship qualities of this outstanding Astrodynamicist. i. SUMMARY
2. VITA
After a long fight with cancer, Professor Breakwell (Fig. 1) passed away on 16 April 1991 at the age of 73. His death amounts to a great loss to the worldwide Astrodynamics community, both from a professional and from a personal point of view. He is rightfully considered to be one of the last few remaining pioneers in the field of Astrodynamics. His ideas and enthusiasm have inspired and guided directly and indirectly the whole present generation of workers in the field of Astrodynamics. The present Note intends to highlight a few of his many professional attributes and to recall some of his remarkable personal characteristics for which his friends will always remember him.
After receiving a B.A. degree from Oxford University in the U.K. in 1939, he emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1941 where he lectured at Tufts University while working on his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics (received in 1947) at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Afterwards, he went on to industry in 1949, first as a Research Specialist at North American Aviation and, subsequently, as a senior Staff Scientist at Lockheed Missiles & Space in 1957. The first opportunity to become active in the area of satellite dynamics was offered to him in about 1956 when he started work on rocket dynamics problems. At Lockheed, in the late fifties, he originated his pioneering contributions to the field of optimal space trajectories culminating in his classical papers [1,2]. In 1964, he was appointed Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. He was still active as Emeritus Professor at Stanford at the time of his death. Throughout his 27 years at Stanford he has been able to conduct an original and extremely productive research programme. He has educated a large number of students, many of whom have become established and respected leaders in the field of Astrodynamics in their own right.
3. PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION
Fig. 1. •['Presented at the special session "Tribute to John Breakwell (1917-1991)" of the 42nd Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Montreal, Canada, 7-11 October 1991. :I:IAA Member, Section 2.
Professor Breakwell was extremely humble and he always played down the importance of his achievements. He was also sincerely disinterested in professional awards and recognition: for him, the enjoyment of actually doing research and the associated interactions with his students and colleagues was of prime importance. It is a tribute to the high quality of his work that he did receive due recognition in the form of a number of prestigious awards from professional societies in the U.S.A. for instance:
481
482
JOZEFC. VAN Dm~HA
- - C o n t r o l Heritage Award from the American Automatic Control Council (1984) - - D i r k Brouwer Award from the American Astronautical Society (1973) --Mechanics & Control of Flight Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (1972) He was elected in the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1981. In 1977, he received a Humboldt fellowship which allowed him to spend a year at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany. It was during this period that I had the pleasure to be in close contact with him; I learned to admire his virtuosity in all aspects of Astrodynamics as well as to enjoy his friendly and easy-going way of socializing with anyone who happened to be around. His lectures covered both the classical Celestial Mechanics roots of Astrodynamics and the latest developments in the field of satellite dynamics. He was capable, through his enthusiastic and convincing style of lecturing, to convey the impression that it was all extremely straightforward and simple. Only when trying some of the material on his own, the listener would painfully become aware of the many pitfalls John had so skilfully avoided.
4. HIS MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS
John had wide professional interests (also outside the field of Astrodynamics) and he always preferred the enjoyment of research above the tedium of preparing a paper for Journal publication. Because of the small number of comprehensive Journal papers (relative to the many original results he produced), it is problematic to categorize and summarize his work in a fair manner. The following list should therefore be seen within these limitations; however, it is still indicative of the wide range of topics in which he was capable of offering lasting contributions to the Astrodynamics community: ---Optimization of Trajectories [1,2] --Matching of Interplanetary Trajectories [3-5] --Satellite Perturbation Theories - - H a l o Orbits and Stability of the Three-Body Problem ---Control of Tethered Satellites - - T h e o r y and Applications of Guidance and Control --Pursuit and Evasion Problems in Differential Games. Professor Breakwell was active in and made substantial contributions to essentially all modern theoretical areas of Astrodynamics. In addition, he was keenly interested and alert to space applications and worked on a number of actual and proposed satellite projects, such as Gravity Probe B as well as X-ray astronomy and relativity missions.
5. IAF INVOLVEMENT
Professor Breakwell has been a respected member of the I A F Astrodynamics Committee since 1985. His humour, his authority and his gift for sound judgement will be missed in future Committee activities. He chaired the Natural Trajectories Session of the I A F Astrodynamics Symposium for many years: attendants will remember his convincing presentations of papers written by authors who were unable to participate in the Symposium (in particular, Soviet authors). Often he was able to add new material to these contributions when preparing the presentation during the one or two days before the Session. He enjoyed the I A F Astrodynamics Sessions tremendously and even in his later years he did not miss any of them. He remained receptive to and excited about new ideas and his questions were always relevant and never derogatory, not even in cases where he knew that better contributions already existed in the literature.
6. JOHN: THE FRIEND
John Breakwell was extremely easy to get along with and most people immediately felt at ease with him: his humorous and anecdotal style of conversation was always interesting and carried a relaxed atmosphere with it. He never got upset about anything and his wits and flexibility kept him out of any difficulties he could have gotten into by some lack of organizational rigor. John had wide interests outside his work, e.g. music, sports, politics, and hiking. During his last I A F Conference in Dresden in October 1990 he managed to entertain the people who happened to be present in the large reception hall by playing the "Blue Danube Waltz" on a piano he had found tucked away under a staircase. Personally, I have been on a number of overnight hikes with him in the Alps and Pyrenees and came to admire his good physical condition and his continually good spirits, Even at the age of 68 he was sufficiently strong and determined to ascend (and descend again) from the Koenigssee near Berchtesgarden in Southern Germany up to the Riemannhaus above Saalfelden in Austria: a net altitude difference of about 1600m. John's many friends all over the world will miss his pleasant character, his humour, his jovial presence, his sincere advice, and his great wisdom not only in professional matters. We feel grateful to have had the good fortune to have known him and to have profited in so many ways from his remarkable talents.
REFERENCES 1. J. V. Breakwe|], The optimization of trajectories. J. Soc, lndust, appl. Math. 7, 215-247 (1959).
John V. Breakwell 2. J. V. Breakwell, Minimum impulse transfer. Progress in Astronautics & Aeronautics, Vol. 17 (Edited by V. G. Szebehely), pp. 583-590. Academic Press, New York (1964). 3. J. V. Breakwell and L. M. Perko, Matched asymptotic expansions, patched conics, and the computation of interplanetary trajectories. Progress in Astronautics & Aeronautics, Vol. 17 (Edited by R. L. Duncombe and
483
V. G. Szebehely), pp. 159-182. Academic Press, New York (1966). 4. J. V. Breakwell and L. M. Perko, Second-order matching in the restricted three-body problem. Celestial Mech. 9, 437-450 (1974). 5. J. V. Breakwell, Asymptotic matching for interplanetary flybys. Rocky Mountain J. Math. 8, 515-525 (1976).