Ralph Grayson

Ralph Lawrence Grayson (1921-1991) was a scientist, engineer, pilot, attorney, soldier, father and husband. He was born into poverty, the son of an Arkansas sharecropper. He went on to be a pioneer in network computing and play a lead role in the development of the Space Shuttle.

Early years

Ralph Lawrence Grayson was born April 29, 1921 in Fort Smith, Arkansas; the eldest of eleven children born to Albert Grayson. The first eight children were mothered by Albert's first wife, Pearl Grayson (maiden name, Pearl Agnes Foster, 1895-1934). Pearl died on July 23, 1934 (circumstances unknown). The following year Albert remarried and had three more children with Ruby Grayson (Maiden name, Ruby Tanner).

Ralph's siblings:

Ralph's half siblings:

NASA

In 197_(date?) Ralph retired from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as Associate Commander, Memphis Air Route Traffic Control Center. During this time, NASA made many overtures to recruit him into various executive level roles within the agency. He initially turned these offers down. He was then approached with a package deal through Battelle to be an executive level member of the Space Shuttle development team, employed as a subcontractor. He accepted.

His title on the Space Shuttle Project was Principle Research Scientist, Aviation Safety Reporting, System Project Office located at Moffett Field Naval Air Station in Mountain View, California.

Ralph Grayson was an international calibre expert in the field of aviation safetyhuman error, redundancy systems, and computerized safety systems. His technical papers written during his final years at the FAA and his time at NASA would become reference material within the field for a generation. Many of both the procedural and technological innovations he brought to the Air Traffic Control system outlived him, and remained in use into the 21st century. The remaining fleet of Space Shuttles are scheduled for retirement in 2010.

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