Robert Golden Gottlieb

Dr Robert Golden Gottlieb, tireless innovator, adventure seeker, beloved father, grandfather, and friend to many, who made countless contributions to the U.S. Space Program over his long career, passed away peacefully on July 31, 2024, at age 87. He had been in excellent health but rapidly declined in his last year due to vascular dementia likely exacerbated by COVID-19.

He was born Robert Leslie Golden to Florence (Moskowitz) and Harry Golden in Tyler, Texas, the only town near his native Overton, Texas, with a hospital at the time. He had life-threatening pneumonia as a newborn, only pulling through thanks to a dedicated nurse who pounded on his chest for hours, refusing to let him die. From that moment on, Bob never slowed down, as anyone can attest who has ever been spurred into action by him saying, "Come on, we're burning daylight!" He spent his early childhood riding his pony, shooting his .22 rifle, and having run-ins with copperheads across the rugged landscapes of East Texas, where his father worked in the burgeoning oil fields of the day.

Bob's life took a sharp turn at age 10 when a teenaged driver ran a stop sign and killed his father Harry in a car accident. His mother later met Maurice Gottlieb, a traveling salesman from Kansas City, Missouri. Six weeks after meeting, they married, moved the family to Missouri, and soon changed Bob's last name to Gottlieb. Bob attended Southwest High School in Kansas City and completed a year at the University of Missouri before transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his love of mathematics and engineering blossomed. A previously disinterested student, Bob said the first math class he took at MIT was like "beautiful music." He completed bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering, but just as he began working toward a PhD, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, and Bob committed his ample brain power to aerospace.

In 1965, Bob moved with his new bride Marilyn (Stern) to Huntsville, Alabama, to work at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, helping to design trajectory and navigation software as part of Wernher von Braun's Saturn V team. His guidance and optimization programming during the Apollo program helped America get to the Moon. Continuing to work with NASA, Bob earned a PhD in aerospace engineering at the University of Texas in 1973. As the heyday of Apollo was winding down, he decided to move his young family to Kansas City to be closer to relatives and made an abrupt career shift. He joined the family business as Vice President of Lewis Industries, a small manufacturing company producing auto parts. Needless to say, he was less interested in the business aspect of things and spent all his time inventing new machines for the company's foundry.

This marked the beginning of Bob's lifelong passion-and unofficial side career-as an inventor and innovator. He held 14 U.S. patents, including a mirror that doesn't fog up in the shower, an air-circulating hospital bed to prevent bedsores, and a specialized stirrup (the Gityeup) that makes it easier to mount a horse. In 1982, after banging his hand one too many times when a wrench slipped on Lewis Industry's heavy machinery, Bob invented a locking crescent wrench that went on to become one of Stanley Tools' most enduring brands. One of his favorite pastimes was figuring out solutions to practical problems. Whenever he met someone in a different field, he would probe for their greatest challenges, often just stating, "Give me a problem to work on." Later in life, Bob was an enthusiastic participant in NASA' s "Ask a Rocket Scientist" program, where the public could write in to ask for outside-the-box thinking on their most vexing problems. Bob's elegant solutions ranged from figuring out how to get the last bits of propane out of a tank to how to keep a vein perfused before surgical grafting.

In 1984, Bob returned to the space industry, moving to Houston and working at Boeing (previously McDonnell Douglas) for almost 25 years and then at Odyssey Space Research, consulting for NASA well into his eighties. He made major engineering contributions to the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Iridium Satellite System programs. This included development of the Ada Simulation Development System, a technique selected as the Space Station high precision onboard propagator, and the EITAG (Eccentricity Intercept Targeting and Guidance) algorithm. The latter came about when NASA asked for a reboost guidance and targeting algorithm for the Space Station. Bob was about to go on vacation but was confident he could do it in a week. His manager told him this was not an easy problem to solve in a month, let alone a week. He returned a week later and put a Continental Airlines barf bag on the manager's desk, complete with the handwritten algorithm and documentation. The idea had come to him at 30,000 feet over Kansas. The barf bag was later framed by his colleagues.

Bob loved being active outdoors with friends and family as much as he loved more intellectual pursuits. He was a longtime horseman and spent many years riding his beloved horse Harley into the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming for annual camping and elk hunting trips. He loved downhill skiing and didn't let the fact that he spent most of his life in the flattest of flatlands slow him down - an avid member of first the Kansas City Ski Club and later the Houston-based Space City Ski Club, he skied all over the world. When his daughter Sami and family moved to Switzerland in 2011, he skied almost yearly in the Alps until he was 83 years old. He became an avid cyclist, often the oldest member of his Clear Lake (Texas) cycling club rides. He completed the MS 150 a dozen times, an annual bike race from Houston to Austin that raises money for multiple sclerosis. He also enjoyed hiking, scuba diving, tennis, chess, waterskiing, boating, and even played polo for a few years. In his last years, he led his retirement community in daily walks around a local park.

Most of all, Bob valued doing the things he loved with dear family and friends. He had many wonderful adventures and trips with his children and grandchildren all over the world. He was a loyal friend, colleague, and mentor to many, and he treasured his weekly "Boeing Boys" lunches long after retirement. He is survived by his loving children Sami, Amy, and David Gottlieb, sons-in-law and daughter-in-law Scott Filler, Darren Korunich, and Siham Naseef, his four beloved grandchildren Maia and Ben Filler and Amani Jasmine and Sami Amir Gottlieb, his sister Jody Present, many wonderful cousins, nieces and nephews, and lifelong friends and colleagues. One of Bob's final inspirations involved placing a camera on the Moon to transmit continuous images of the Earth in the lunar sky, so that "everyone can see how we're affecting that little blue marble we all call home." Bob spent his life expanding what we know of the world and trying to make it a little bit better. He was loved by many and will be greatly missed.