US Space Pioneer. William L. Gant was born in Roseland, Indiana in 1924. During World War II, he joined the US Navy, and upon his discharge at the end of the war, he moved to Niles, Michigan, where he married Dorothy Austin in 1949; they would have six children. In 1953, he became involved with the space program when the US Army’s Ordnance Corps, which had responsibility for the Army’s missile program, hired him. He worked on V-2 Rockets with Dr. Werner von Braun at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, and stayed with the rocket team when it was later transferred to Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama. There he participated in the development of the ground instrumentation for the check out and launching of various missiles, including the Redstone, Jupiter C, Jupiter Juno and Pershing missiles. He participated in the design and construction of mobile ground instrumentation for the first launching of an American ballistic missile, the Redstone, in August of 1953. In later years he was among those responsible for the space center’s instrumentation calibration laboratory, the forerunner of the labs in the Kennedy Space Center's Central Instrumentation facility in 1980. Although he only had an 8th grade education, he designed and built many instruments for space flight before the instruments or components were available commercially. He was considered industrious, creative, inventive and very objective. He was one of five men credited with designing the first guidance systems for V-2 rockets. He was also one of 37 scientists, engineers, and technicians that formed the Army's Missile Firing Laboratory in 1953 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, later to become the Kennedy Space Center. He retired from the Kennedy Space Center in 1980, and in July 1993, died from emphysema at the age of 69.
US Space Pioneer. William L. Gant was born in Roseland, Indiana in 1924. During World War II, he joined the US Navy, and upon his discharge at the end of the war, he moved to Niles, Michigan, where he married Dorothy Austin in 1949; they would have six children. In 1953, he became involved with the space program when the US Army’s Ordnance Corps, which had responsibility for the Army’s missile program, hired him. He worked on V-2 Rockets with Dr. Werner von Braun at the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, and stayed with the rocket team when it was later transferred to Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, Alabama. There he participated in the development of the ground instrumentation for the check out and launching of various missiles, including the Redstone, Jupiter C, Jupiter Juno and Pershing missiles. He participated in the design and construction of mobile ground instrumentation for the first launching of an American ballistic missile, the Redstone, in August of 1953. In later years he was among those responsible for the space center’s instrumentation calibration laboratory, the forerunner of the labs in the Kennedy Space Center's Central Instrumentation facility in 1980. Although he only had an 8th grade education, he designed and built many instruments for space flight before the instruments or components were available commercially. He was considered industrious, creative, inventive and very objective. He was one of five men credited with designing the first guidance systems for V-2 rockets. He was also one of 37 scientists, engineers, and technicians that formed the Army's Missile Firing Laboratory in 1953 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, later to become the Kennedy Space Center. He retired from the Kennedy Space Center in 1980, and in July 1993, died from emphysema at the age of 69.
Bio by: Bill Thompson
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