J. Halcombe Laning

<h2 id="career">Career</h2>
<p>Laning received his PhD from MIT in 1947 with a dissertation titled "Mathematical Theory of Lubrication-Type Flow".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> His undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering (1940) was also from MIT.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a>
</p><p>He was elected to the <a href="/facts/National_Academy_of_Engineering/6RCqfvXM">National Academy of Engineering</a> in 1983 for his work in <a href="/facts/Aerospace_engineering/2Ib02w7f">aerospace engineering</a>, particularly his "unique pioneering achievements in missile guidance and computer science—the <a href="/facts/Q-guidance/3Ly9G4BF">Q-guidance</a> system for <a href="/facts/Thor_missile/rgrE9hEB">Thor</a> and <a href="/facts/Polaris_missile/AKTSHCNB">Polaris</a> [missiles] and George".<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> He was also an honorary member of the <a href="/facts/American_Mathematical_Society/fr5gotCt">American Mathematical Society</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a>
</p><p>Laning features prominently in the third episode of the <a href="/facts/Science_Channel/lavqV2x2">Science Channel</a>'s documentary miniseries titled <i><a href="/facts/Moon_Machines/hPF2gMIe">Moon Machines</a></i> which aired in June 2008.
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<h3>Apollo Program</h3>
<p>He later worked in the MIT <a href="/facts/Draper_Lab/prxprY9L">Draper Lab</a>, with <a href="/facts/Richard_Battin/PeSauxna">Richard H. Battin</a>, to develop a scheme for doing onboard navigation on the <a href="/facts/Apollo_program/IC1Ek1Ao">Apollo program</a>'s <a href="/facts/Apollo_Command/Service_Module/rfoTgzFx">command/service module</a> <a href="/facts/Guidance_systems/Qhjm4enq">guidance system</a>.  He designed the Executive and Waitlist operating system for the <a href="/facts/Apollo_guidance_computer/xGxHlrXY">LGC</a> (Lunar Module Guidance Computer) in the mid 1960s; he built it up from scratch with no examples to guide him, and the design is still valid. The allocation of functions among a sensible number of asynchronous processes, under control of a rate and priority-driven preemptive executive, still represents the state of the art in real-time <a href="/facts/Guidance,_navigation,_and_control/Terngs4t">GN&C</a> computers for spacecraft.  His design saved the Apollo 11 landing mission when the rendezvous radar interface program began using more register core sets and "Vector Accumulator" areas than were physically available in memory, causing the infamous 1201 and 1202 errors.  Had it not been for Laning's design the landing would have been aborted for lack of a stable guidance computer.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a>
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<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li><a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102634811">A portrait of J. Halcombe Laning, taken in 1997</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>"Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions". Answers. <a href="https://www.answers.com/redirectSearch" target="_blank">https://www.answers.com/redirectSearch</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>"computer". history.nasa.gov. <a href="https://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/computer.html" target="_blank">https://history.nasa.gov/sts1/pages/computer.html</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>Guidance system <a href="/wiki/Guidance_system" target="_blank">/wiki/Guidance_system</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>J. Halcombe Laning, Jr at the Mathematics Genealogy Project <a href="https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=33485" target="_blank">https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=33485</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:5"><p>MIT Museum Collections - People <a href="http://webmuseum.mit.edu/detail.php?t=people&type=browse&f=preferred_name&s=Laning%2C+J.+Halcombe&record=0" target="_blank">http://webmuseum.mit.edu/detail.php?t=people&type=browse&f=preferred_name&s=Laning%2C+J.+Halcombe&record=0</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:6"><p>"Dr. J. Halcombe Laning". Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved July 28, 2009. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100528132256/http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+UNID/91CB3C1EF7430AFF8625755200622AE5?opendocument" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20100528132256/http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+UNID/91CB3C1EF7430AFF8625755200622AE5?opendocument</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:7"><p>"Notices from the AMS" (PDF). American Mathematical Society. 42 (12). Retrieved November 20, 2022. <a href="https://www.ams.org/notices/199512/from.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.ams.org/notices/199512/from.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:8"><p>"TALES FROM THE LUNAR MODULE GUIDANCE COMPUTER". klabs.org. <a href="http://klabs.org/history/apollo_11_alarms/eyles_2004/eyles_2004.htm" target="_blank">http://klabs.org/history/apollo_11_alarms/eyles_2004/eyles_2004.htm</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
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J. Halcombe Laning open-in-new

J. Halcombe Laning