Benjamin Paul Blasingame

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.

Early life Benjamin Paul Blasingame was born in State College, Pennsylvania, on 1 August 1919. He graduated from Pennsylvania State College in 1940, having majored in mechanical engineering. He also participated in the college's Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. In early 1941 he was called to active duty. He received a regular commission in the United States Army Signal Corps in January 1942. During World War II he worked on ground-based radar systems with an Air Force Fighter Group in Panama as a communications and radar officer. In 1945 he joined the Armament Laboratory at Wright Field, Ohio.

US Air Force Blasingame remained in the Army after the war, working in engineering positions, and he joined the United States Air Force (USAF) on its formation in September 1947. That year the USAF sponsored his enrolment in a graduate program at the Instrumentation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned his Doctor of Science degree in 1950, He became known as a member of Draper's "inertial mafia", who advocated the use of inertial navigation systems.

For his services, Blasingame was awarded the Legion of Merit.

AC Spark Plug merged with United Delco in 1971, and became Delco Electronics in 1974. He moved to Santa Barbara, California, where he managed its operations, and worked on the development of helicopters. His papers are in the University Archives at Virginia Tech.