![]() ![]() In 1987 Lonnie returned to JPL to work on the Mars Observer project and early stages of the Cassini mission to Saturn project, earning multiple NASA awards for his spacecraft system designs. He helped develop components for the stealth bomber and earned medals for his Air Force work. In 1979 he accepted a position at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he worked on the Galileo mission to Jupiter as Senior Systems Engineer.Ī few years later he returned to the Air Force to serve as an Advanced Space Systems Requirements Officer at Strategic Air Command and then as Chief of the Data Management Branch, SAC Test and Evaluation Squadron, at Edwards Air Force Base. biography, after graduate school he became a research engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, then joined the US Air Force and served as acting chief of the Space Nuclear Power Safety Section. (Later he also received an honorary PhD in science from Tuskegee for his professional accomplishments.) According to his official Johnson Research and Development Co. Lonnie proved his high-school prize was no fluke when he earned a BS degree in mechanical engineering in 1973 and an MS degree in nuclear engineering in 1975 from Tuskegee University in Alabama. Lonnie Johnson at work in one of the Johnson R&D labs. Courtesy of Johnson Research & Development Co., Inc. ![]() Despite his success, he later recalled “The only thing anybody from the university said to us during the entire competition was “goodbye’ and “y’all drive safe, now.’” As the only black student competing, he won first prize for “Linex,” a compressed-air-powered robot he had created out of junkyard scraps and other spare parts. A defining moment in his life came in 1968 when he represented his high school at a science fair sponsored by the University of Alabama. Going to school during segregation, Lonnie attended the all-black Williamson High School in Mobile where he was nicknamed “The Professor” by his friends. They bought me a lot of toys and things, knowing the first thing I would do is take them apart.” Instead my parents got me a hot plate and said ‘do that kind of stuff outside.’ My parents were really patient. It ignited and could have nearly burned the house down. One day I was making some rocket fuel on top of the stove. In notes from the telephone interview conducted by Ken Brown for IAP, Lonnie said “my parents’ support was a big deal…I played with rockets when I was a kid. Growing up, Lonnie loved tinkering and repairing things like his father did around the house, skills that helped him later as an inventor. According to, his father was a World War II veteran who worked as a civilian truck driver for the US Air Force and his mother worked in a laundry and as a nurse’s aide. ![]() Lonnie was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1949. Lonnie Johnson talking about global energy and environmental challenges as part of the Office of Naval Research's 70th Anniversary Edition Distinguished Lecture Series in February 2016. ![]()
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