Owen Eugene Maynard (October 27, 1924 – July 15, 2000) was a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
engineer who contributed to the designs of the Canadian CF-105
Avro Arrow
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft designed and built by Avro Canada. The CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) p ...
jet interceptor, and of
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
Lunar Module
The Apollo Lunar Module (LM ), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed ...
(LM). Maynard was a member of the group of 32 Canadian and British engineers from Avro Canada who joined NASA when the Arrow was cancelled in 1959. Maynard worked on
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
until 1960 and then moved to the Apollo program. Maynard won a U.S. patent (US3300162) in 1967 for a space station design.
Early life
Owen Maynard was born in
Sarnia
Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes where Lake Huron fl ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
on October 27, 1924. He enlisted in the
Royal Canadian Air Force
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...
in 1942, was trained as a
Mosquito
Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...
pilot, and served in England as a Flying Officer during World War II. He earned a B.A.Sc. in Aeronautical Engineering from the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
in 1951.
Career
After the war, Maynard was employed by the
A. V. Roe company, located at what is now
Pearson International Airport
Lester B. Pearson International Airport , commonly known as Toronto Pearson International Airport, is an international airport located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is the main airport serving Toronto, its Greater Toronto Area, metropolit ...
in Toronto. He began there as a craftsman, and worked on the
CF-100
The Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck (affectionately known as the "Clunk") is a Canadian twinjet interceptor/ fighter designed and produced by aircraft manufacturer Avro Canada. It has the distinction of being the only Canadian-designed fighter to e ...
fighter aircraft and the
Avro Jetliner
The Avro Canada C102 Jetliner was a Canadian prototype medium-range turbojet-powered jet airliner built by Avro Canada in 1949. It was beaten to the air by only 13 days by the de Havilland Comet, thereby becoming the second jet airliner in t ...
. After taking time off to obtain his engineering degree, he returned to A. V. Roe as a designer, eventually rising to the position of Senior Stress Engineer. He spent much of this period carrying out engineering design and analysis for the CF-105 aircraft, the
Avro Arrow
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft designed and built by Avro Canada. The CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) p ...
.
After the cancellation of the Arrow program in 1959, Maynard was one of the group of top Avro engineers who were "loaned" to the newly formed
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's
Space Task Group
The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with managing America's human spaceflight programs. Headed by Robert Gilruth and based at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, it managed Project Me ...
, in Langley, Virginia, to work on
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
. (Later, after moving to Houston, this group formed the core of what became NASA's
Manned Spacecraft Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...
, later renamed the
Johnson Space Center
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...
.) Maynard was initially assigned to be Project Engineer for the first flight-test Mercury capsule. Among other activities in that role, he participated in the recovery of the
Mercury-Atlas 1
Mercury-Atlas 1 (MA-1) was the first attempt to launch a Mercury capsule and occurred on July 29, 1960 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft was unmanned and carried no launch escape system. The Atlas rocket suffered a structural failure 58 ...
capsule from the sea-floor following the failure of its launch vehicle. During the recovery operations, he performed a 30-foot free-dive to find one particular missing component of the capsule. He stated in a
official interviewthat during the subsequent launch failure review process, his post-flight calculations showed the skin of the launch vehicle just below the spacecraft would have buckled, due to the combined drag and bending loads at the max-Q point exceeding the tensile stress in the skin due to internal pressure. Based on that finding, the NASA specified that future Mercury-Atlas launch vehicles add doublers to the skin structure in that area, and that future launch trajectories be shallowed to reduce pitch angle rate, to reduce the bending stress on the launch vehicle. This failure mode did not recur on those subsequent launches.
Not long after this, Maynard was transferred to a small team (the Advanced Vehicle Team, led by Robert O. Piland ) tasked with developing concepts for possible post-Mercury NASA missions, where he made the initial sketches of a modular, 3-man spacecraft that became the basis for the
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
spacecraft.
By 1963, Maynard became chief of the
LEM
Lem may refer to:
Places
* 3836 Lem, an asteroid named after Stanisław Lem
* , a municipality in Jutland
People Given name or nickname
(Alphabetical by surname)
* Lemuel Lem Barney (born 1945), American football player
* Lem Billings (1916– ...
engineering office in the Apollo Program Office in
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
. It was acknowledged at the time that Maynard was the person at NASA most responsible for the design of the Lunar Module, although most of detailed design work was done at
Grumman
The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 1994 ...
Aircraft in New York under the direction of
Thomas J. Kelly.
In 1964, Maynard was promoted to the position of Chief of the Systems Engineering Division in the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, which put him in charge of systems integration for the Apollo spacecraft. He held this position for most of the remainder of his career at NASA; for a time in 1966 and 1967, he was also Chief of the Mission Operations Division. While at mission operations, Maynard devised the “A” to “G” sequence for Apollo test flights leading to the first lunar landing on Apollo 11. Maynard chose to sleep through the landing itself, so that he could be well rested for the subsequent takeoff (which he felt would be more complex, and require greater concentration on his part).
Maynard left NASA in 1970, following the
second lunar landing, and went on to
Raytheon
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliza ...
in the
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
area. There he worked on many aerospace programs. He also became an advocate for the use of solar power collected on earth for powering spacecraft, and of
Solar Power Satellites to collect solar power for usage on Earth. In 1992, he retired from Raytheon, and he and his wife Helen returned to Canada, where they settled in
Waterloo,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, where he died on July 15, 2000.
[Gainor (2001). p. 273.]
Awards, citations and honours
*
NASA Exceptional Service Medal
The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, ae ...
(twice)
* Doctorate of Engineering, ''honoris causa'', University of Toronto (1996)
* Asteroid
5132 Maynardbr>
(1990 ME)is named after Owen Maynard
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Arrow Recovery Canada* National Air & Space Museum Oral History projec
interviewswith Owen Maynard.
* , extracted from a July 1969 interview, of Owen Maynard providing an engineering answer to the question "Why does the LEM look like it does?"
about Owen Maynard.
* Owen Maynar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maynard, Owen
1924 births
2000 deaths
Canadian aerospace engineers
People from Sarnia
University of Toronto alumni
Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Royal Canadian Air Force officers
Canadian World War II pilots