Kip Siegel

Keeve Milton "Kip" Siegel (January 9, 1924 – March 14, 1975) was an American physicist, electrical engineer and businessman. He was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, and the founder of Conductron Corporation, a high-tech producer of electronic equipment which was absorbed by McDonnell Douglas Corporation; KMS Industries and KMS Fusion. KMS Fusion was the first private sector company to pursue controlled thermonuclear fusion energy production through use of laser technology.

Prior to his involvement in laser fusion, Siegel served as the founding director of University of Michigan's Radiation Laboratory from 1952 to 1961, and was known for his contributions to the radar cross section analysis of flying targets.

Early life and academic career Keeve Milton Siegel was born on January 9, 1924, in New York City Due to the importance of their work to what would become NORAD, it was renamed the Theory and Analysis Group in early 1952. Siegel chaired the Organizing Committee of the URSI-sponsored Symposium on Electromagnetic Wave Theory held at the University of Michigan, 20–25 June 1955.

On May 1, 1974, KMS Fusion achieved the first laser-induced fusion with a deuterium–tritium pellet, documented by Hofstadter's nuclear emulsion detectors, which could detect neutrons. He was Jewish and served as the former president of the Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor.

Siegel died on March 14, 1975 at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., following the complications of a stroke he had while testifying before the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in defense of his laser fusion research.