Navigation — From Canoes to Spaceships^ 



By Charles S. Draper 



Professor and Head, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics 

 Director, Instrumentation Laboratory 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 



[With 4 plates] 

 INTRODUCTION 



In 1786 John Hyacinth de Magellan of London presented 200 

 guineas to the American Philosophical Society as a gift, through 

 which special gold medals were to be awarded from time to time. 

 Under the terms of the gift, each of these medals should go "to the 

 author of the best discovery or most useful invention relating to navi- 

 gation, astronomy, or natural philosophy (mere natural history only 

 excepted)." This specification of conditions makes it very probable 

 that the donor intended to honor his lineal ancestor Ferdinando Ma- 

 gellan, who was killed during a Philippine Islands battle in April of 

 1521, after having navigated across all the unknown longitudes of the 

 world's oceans. This earlier Magellan, the illustrious first circum- 

 navigator of the globe, was a man whose vision, boldness, leadership, 

 steadiness in adversity, and actual achievements give him an miassail- 

 able position as a very great member of the human race. It is a high 

 honor for the author of this paper to be identified in any way with 

 the name of Magellan, and he is deeply grateful to the American 

 Philosophical Society for the 1959 Magellanic Medal. The citation 

 mentions contributions to inertial guidance, a field in which the author 

 has been active for many years as director of the Instrumentation 

 Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this 

 position, he has been fortunate to have the collaboration of a dedicated 

 and able group of scientists and engineers who must rightfully receive 

 a great share of any credit that may be due for pioneering applica- 

 tions of inertial devices to the problems of navigation. 



Inertial navigation is properly the subject of primary interest for 



^ Reprinted by permission from Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 

 104, No. 2, AprU 1960. 



301 



