Eulogy for Dadlet, Rocket Scientist and So Much More

Здоровье, любовь и деньги, и время их употреблять. (Zdorovye, lyubov’ i dengi, i vremya ikh upotreblat.)

Gesundheit, Liebe und Geld, und die Zeit, sich damit zu vergnügen.

Salud, amor y pesetas, y el tiempo para disfrutarlas.

This was his favourite toast—in Russian, German and Spanish. It means health, love, money, and the time to enjoy them.

Dadlet, Pops, Normlet, Normie, loveable grump…otherwise known as Norm, or Norman Lew Ingold, passed away at 90…much loved and only occasionally grumpy. In fact, whenever anyone asked him how he was, he’d always say, “Just peachy for a Monday,” on any day but Monday.  

Dad spoke seven languages. He remembered hearing German spoken in Wisconsin where he grew up, and said his dad, my Grandpa Dee, spoke German back then with the guys who made Swiss cheese—dad always loved Wisconsin cheese. His language skills were inspired by his Hungarian grandmother, also named Maria, who also spoke seven languages. I always told him it skipped generations! He picked up Norwegian from a roommate at university, studied Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, and learned Japanese when he was stationed in Japan—by helping locals in exchange for language lessons.

After Dad left the Army, he said he “majored in math, chemistry, geology, anthropology, linguistics and finally physics, on the basis that the latter would be a good basis for whatever I might do if I ever grew up.”

Dad’s second grade teacher said he’d never amount to anything—he took longer than the other kids because he spent longer thinking about what he was doing, not just doing it because someone told him to do so. He became a rocket scientist, yet never once said, “It’s not rocket science”, because he valued everyone’s mind and abilities.

He ended up as Chief Scientist at CIGTF (Central Inertial and GPS Test Facility). He’d take me to see the sled tests as a kid…pure magic. He helped save the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts by increasing the accuracy of the guidance systems for the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) from 200 miles to 3 miles.  His math models also helped us win the Cold War without a shot being fired. And I love that, in the age of computers, he was able to increase the accuracy of a specific rocket component by 1400% using a printout, a ruler, and a calculator. 

Despite rescuing a cat abandoned near his cabin—he called her Laptop because she loved to sit on his lap—Dad did not, however, type. Even Holloman noted, “all his technical reports were delivered as immaculately hand-written documents.” But, as a self-proclaimed mountain man, he did jump over a rattlesnake to save Laptop! And then shot it in the head with his .45 caliber two-shot Derringer. This being New Mexico, it still slithered off.

Dadlet always shared what he was interested in. He raised me on Star Trek and 1920s black and white horror films. He provided Dadvice, and I took him on Dadventures. My favourite piece of advice is “learn everything about everything”. I added to that, “because your unconscious mind will use all of it to solve what your conscious mind thinks is impossible.”

On making the impossible dadventure happen, when Dad was 81, I was inspired to introduce him to Elon Musk. Father’s Day for rocket scientists. Dad may have been star-struck by Elon, but he was galaxy-struck by SpaceX. He said it was the best facility he’d ever seen. We came back by Skull Rock at Joshua Tree, which he’d loved as a kid. I discovered at Lowell Observatory that he knew Clyde Tombough who discovered Pluto. He’d last seen Meteor Crater 70 years earlier when they thought it might be a volcano. And we stopped at the Very Large Array, massive radio telescopes that listen to space. As we drove past the Trinity Site where they exploded the first atom bomb in 1945, Dad said, “This has been the most perfect visit ever.” That trip wasn’t just about Elon and space. It was about togetherness. And family. And precious father-daughter time. And fun.

In a letter to a friend, Dad said, a young USAF lieutenant recently asked him what his philosophy of life was. He said, “Never completely grow up”, and the more he thought about it, the more valid that seemed. What that meant to me was retain that curiosity, wonder, imagination, and fun of a child in everything you do.

Dad has a book on the Gospel of Thomas—English on one page and Coptic on the other. He was teaching himself Coptic for fun. One phrase he singled out in a letter to Father Timon, “Pajaf Jesus je shōpe eteténera párage.” “Jesus said, ‘Be passers by.’”

Dad said, “My view of that is, we’re on a bridge and the Goal is the end of the bridge. (Don’t stay stuck on the bridge). It doesn’t say where we were before we got on the bridge, or how we got there.”

He reached the end of the bridge. He reached the Goal.

I end as Dad and I ended every call, and the last full sentences we said to each other. “I love you. Purr.”