Nguyen Xuan Vinh

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Nguyen Xuan Vinh (b. January 1930 in Yen Bay, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese-American scientist and educator. He is married to Cung Thi Toan whose father Cung Dinh Van was executed by Ho Chi Minh along with Pham Quynh, and Ngo Dinh Khoi. [1]

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[edit] Military service

He was the Commander and first Air Marshal of the South Vietnamese Air Force from 1958 until 1962 when he resigned and came to the United States.

[edit] Education

In 1965 he was the recipient of the first Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences conferred by the University of Colorado. In 1972, he was awarded a national doctorate in Mathematics by the University of Paris, France. He joined the University of Michigan in 1968 as an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering and was promoted to the rank of professor in 1972.

In 1994, he was given the Mechanics and Control of Flight Award by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. As a scientist and educator, he has published three books and more than 100 papers in mathematics, astrodynamics and trajectory optimization. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and a foreign member of the French National Academy of Air and Space.

[edit] Author

In 1960, to promote a cadet recruitment program for the newly created Air Force Academy in Vietnam, he wrote a novel: Pilot's Life, which became a best seller (now in its sixth printing) and he was awarded the Republic of Vietnam's National Literature Prize. The novel is in the form of a series of letters written by a pilot to his sweetheart.

[edit] Awards

In 2006, he won the Dirk Brouwer Award, awarded by the American Astronautical Society, for outstanding lifetime achievement in the field of space flight mechanics and astrodynamics. [2]

[edit] External links

Military offices
Preceded by
Trần Văn Hổ		 Commander Vietnam Air Force
1958 – 1962		 Succeeded by
Huỳnh Hữu Hiền


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