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Eugene F. Lally is an American space scientist, spacecraft and mission conceptual designer and photographer, and was born in South Boston, Massachusetts in 1934.[1] He was educated as an electrical engineer at Northeastern University. Lally writes for space, astrobiology, photography, travel, archaeology and economics publications.
Lally's technical papers are presented at national meetings of a variety of societies and published by: the American Rocket Society, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, IEEE, American Astronautical Society, in journals and magazines such as: Astronautics, Astronautica Acta, Design News, Aviation Weekly, Anthropology News, Space Times and national and local newspapers. He published technical papers about rockets and space flight while in college in the mid-1950s before the launch of Sputnik. Upon graduation he went to California to help start up the space program.
Lally published initial papers with spacecraft designs to explore the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, comets, asteroids, solar system escape probe, earth satellites and Direct TV. He proposed Manned Mars Missions using nuclear propulsion stages and designed optical guidance and navigation for astronauts' onboard use. Simulated gravity was also included to create a more workable environment for the long mission and to protect them from bone mass loss during an otherwise long weightlessness trajectory.[2]
One paper introduced digital photography in 1961 while at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. It was titled, "Mosaic Guidance for Interplanetary Travel" presented at the annual convention of the American Rocket Society. It proposed for manned Mars missions the design of sensors employing mosaic arrays of photodetectors at the focal plane of cameras with their analogue output converted into the digital domain to provide real-time onboard guidance and navigation. Locations of stars, asteroids and planets were photographed for attitude and position referencing. This was the first presentation of a digital photography concept and digital camera design usable on spacecraft and for general photography..
His gravity simulation proposal for manned Mars missions was published in 1962 titled "To Spin or Not to Spin".
He worked and studied under Krafft A. Ehricke, a German rocket scientist at Peenemünde, who came to America after WWII. They worked together at Convair Astronautics in San Diego and when Lally left for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory they continued to collaborate through Space societies.
Lally's concept of onboard use of digital photos of planets, asteroids and comets during space trajectories for navigation purposes was adopted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA. This system named AutoNav, ushered in a new era of low cost spacecraft missions starting with Deep Space 1 in 1998. This concept also was used on the European Space Agency's Rosetta Spacecraft to refine the approach distance to an asteroid in 2008. Its autonomous and real-time onboard determination of navigation eliminates the costly need of labor-intensive Earth tracking network antennas. It also provides time-distant spacecraft with onboard real-time decision making for thrusting maneuvers while approaching target destinations.
His asteroid landing concept is included on Rosetta scheduled in 2014 to fasten a spacecraft to a comet having essentially no gravity by firing projectiles into the comet's surface and reeling itself onto the surface. This same landing concept is proposed for missions to deflect asteroids headed for a collision with Earth by attaching a nuclear device to the asteroid or for nearby position control of a close following gravity tractor spacecraft.
In 2008 he was asked by the University of California Berkeley, SETI Institute, Carl Sagan Center to present at their Colloquium Series a summary of "How Spaceflight was Born...the Pioneers and the Ideas from Peenemunde to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory" discussing the accomplishments of five space pioneers: Goddard, Oberth, von Braun, Ehricke and himself.
Spinoff 2010, NASA Technologies Benefit Society, published by NASA's Center for AeroSpace Information compiled developments by NASA scentists and engineers that when spunoff became runaway successes in space, industrial and consumer markets. In this case giving birth to the digital camera industry. Cited under "Image Sensors Enhance Camera Technology", stated "While the first digital camera was built by Eastman Kodak in 1975, the first to actually develop the concept was Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineer Eugene Lally, who in the 1960s described the use of mosaic photosensors to digitize light signals and produce still images".
A 2010 paper for the American Astronautical Society included a conceptual design of an Exoplanet Explorer Spacecraft using infrared spectroscopy located at the Lagrange 2 point to investigate recently discovered exoplanets. The design will determine exoplanet atmospheric constituents and search for primordial and advanced atmospheres. Exoplanet evolution as well as detecting biomarkers of forms of life-as-we-know-them and clues to extremophiles or beyond life-as-we-know-it will be addressed. It defines the "Lally Life-forms Probability Index" rating system. Such information will advance our scientific orientation to new levels and prompt new space and astrobiology research.
In 2011 with NASA leadership politically confused and new useful programs not being suggested Lally wrote "Space Exploration...How Far Can We Reach and How Do We Get There" published in the American Astronautical Society's Space Times May/June 2011 issue. It included three advanced space missions. 1.) In-situ Manned Mars Mission using indigenous materials on Mars to live-off-the-land and for production of return propulsion fuel and oxdizer. 2.) An updated unmanned Exoplanet Explorer Spacecraft with an infrared telescope to determine atmospheric constituents of newly discovered Earth-like Exoplanets including determining probability of Earth related and extremophile life-forms. 3.) An unmanned Interstellar Explorer Spacecraft for a fast solar system escape trajectory using two in-space propulsion stages after Earth launch. Electric ion propulsion combined with solar sails are used to continually increase spacecraft velocity. Proximity science in the vicinity of the spacecraft in interstellar space and the process of autonomously selecting interstellar targets for viewing are discussed. This was followed up in the September/October 2011 issue of "Space Times" with, "Exploring for Life in Our Galaxy...a Different Approach Using an Unmanned Spececraft". He discusses the failure of radio astronomy (SETI Institute) after 50 years and fly-bys and landing spacecraft to discover life in our solar system. A spacecraft design is presented employing infrared spectroscopy to search for life-forms from microbial to intelligent on exoplanets that will continually receive biological information, with no waiting. He proposed to change from radio to optical observations to receive useful data.
Well known as an accomplished outdoor photographer his work was exhibited in a travelling show for five years starting in 2003 titled, "Southwest Indian Pueblos and People". It traveled to museums, universities, libraries and selected photos used on magazine and book covers. He combined photographs with archaeological topics of Native Americans with 12 articles published in Anthropology News of the American Anthropological Association. His photographic techniques are included in anthropology university courses to assist in improving the presentation and content of journal papers.