Robert Culp

Robert Dudley Culp (February 28, 1938 – December 21, 2025) died peacefully in his home in Northglenn, Colorado at the age of 87. He wrote his own humorous obituary in 2015 when his wife of 65 years, Betty, asked him to write down more details about his career. It shows his intelligence and wit, so his sons told him they were going to use it without edit when he passed:
Obituary - March 15, 2034
Robert Dudley Culp, 96 years old of Northglenn, Colorado, vanished while surfing twenty foot waves off the coast of Oahu. After a futile search, his wife instructed the search teams, "Let him go. He'd want it this way." His DNA, collected earlier, will be interred in the family plot at Oak Hill Cemetery in McAlester, Oklahoma.
He married Elizabeth Lovelace Poor in 1960. They moved to Northglenn in 1961 and lived there ever since. Both graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and received graduate degrees from the University of Colorado.
Professor Culp received his PhD from the University of Colorado as the first and only doctoral student of Adolf Busemann. He spent the next six decades on the faculty of the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU, serving for seven years as departmental Chairman during the period of rapid growth that raised the department to one of the best in the world. University president Gordon Gee at that time described the department as "the gem in the crown" of the world's finest space university.
In 1966 Dr. Culp received early recognition for applying Pontryagin's Maximum Principle to optimal impulsive orbit transfer, thus completing the rigorous solution of this popular problem. From 1969 through 1975, Dr. Culp published the complete theoretical solution to the problem of optimal hyperbolic flyby. These definitive results have allowed the application of this optimal transfer technique to many multi-planet missions. He developed less restrictive and more accurate solutions to the basic problem of satellite drag and decay. He made significant and lasting contributions to orbit determination techniques, atmospheric entry theory, and optimal atmospheric flight mechanics. In later years, Dr. Culp became one of the leading authorities on space debris, satellite fragmentation modeling, hazard to resident space objects, and the space environment.
Professor Culp established a graduate program and research group in space debris. For many years this was the only such program in the world. He produced thirty PhD's and dozens of Master's graduates. His students dominated the discipline of space debris for decades. He continued his research as Professor Emeritus long after his retirement, and was still active in this field at his death. He cofounded the Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research in 1985 and today remained one of its key researchers.
As an avocation, he was a writer with some success. He published many children's stories and several children's books. He also published several adult short stories and articles, but was most proud of his children's books, originally written for his children.
He always professed that his greatest accomplishment, achieved in concert with his lifelong partner, Betty, was their two boys, Robert Dielman Culp and Thomas Dudley Culp. These boys grew into outstanding men with successful families. They provided Bob and Betty with five equally successful grandchildren.
Professor Culp was an avid hunter, family camper, hiker, skier, and played tennis and golf until he vanished into the surf. If he washes ashore alive, this obituary is withdrawn.
He is survived by his wife Betty, their two sons: Rob of Katy TX (wife Kerrie) and Tom of La Crosse WI (wife Kym), and five grandchildren: Julia, Mariel, Leila; Porter, Allison. He is survived by younger brother Bill, and was preceded in death by older brother Ches.
A graveside service will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, January12, 2026 at Oak Hill Cemetery, Masonic Section. Burial will follow.