Henry "Hank" Cole and his dog Mimmi still live in Los Altos, half a century after his work at NASA Ames Research Center was critical to the Apollo 11 mission. Can you see that Mimmi is smiling?
There are always quiet heroes who walk among us. The men and women of the Greatest Generation certainly qualify for that designation, as do the teams of people who worked to successfully launch America's--and the world's--first manned mission to the surface of the moon. These dedicated professionals did their jobs using very early and rudimentary computers, many developed in the early days of Silicon Valley. I have been fortunate to meet one of those who made that moon launch possible.
Cole at NASA Ames in 1959 with his award-winning HC-9 Wakefield model. The Ames wind tunnel ran tests on lunar launch vehicles too.
Henry Cole is 98 years old (as of August 2019) and served in both World War II and at NASA. He walks his dog Mimmi every morning for at least an hour and says they have walked so long together he calculates he's walked her several times the distance around planet Earth. He thinks like that. He's an engineer.
I enjoyed telling his story recently in the Los Altos Town Crier. Just click the link to read more:
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