Bob Farquhar
Keith’s note: My friend Robert Farquhar left this life today. He orbited the sun 83 times. He was big on orbits and designed some of the most esoteric and complex spacecraft trajectories ever attempted which were executed with stunning precision. Between ISEE-3’s crazy trips around the inner solar system to the recent flyby of Pluto, Bob had a hand in many missions.
The ISEE-3 Reboot effort during which I got to know Bob very well – was spawned by Bob’s relentless persistence and was the capstone to a career that spanned decades and saw into the future with immense precision. He was a hacker in his 80s and simply stunned some of the younger folks who worked on our team.
Bob was a steely-eyed missile man and a genuine space cowboy who always knew exactly how to get NASA to do what it needed to do – even if NASA did not know it at the time. Bob taught me that you are never too old to try new things and that being a pain in the ass serves a vital role in the exploration of space.
I went to visit Bob a week or so ago at home. He was weak but still smiled when I reminded him that he and I had agreed to go outside and wave at ISEE-3 when it flies by Earth again in 2029. More to follow in the days ahead.
I lost my human brother Bob Farquhar today. Although I don't have a computer I will always remember him. #ISEE3 pic.twitter.com/XCWLVeBCO1
— ISEE-3 (@ISEE3Reboot) October 18, 2015
Sad, sad news. Bob was a great man…
So often, when reading about the really good stuff that’s been done in space, Bob Farquhar’s name would come up.
Bob was legendary. When I was in grad school back in the early 1990s, he was legendary then. My mentor (another legendary astrodynamicist) the late Chauncey Uphoff always spoke with great reverence of Bob and his amazing accomplishments. Before we had modern computers and the ability to easily display rotating coordinates and complicated orbits easily, Bob had the unique ability to see this stuff in his head. I never met Bob in person, but through the ISEE-3 reboot project had several opportunities to speak on the phone with him and talk orbits. His skills, exploits and personality were all legendary. He was a brilliant man, but also quite a character (it really comes out in his book). Bob’s out there now with Chauncey, “riding the spacecraft”.
I always thought the date of NEAR’s orbital insertion was a nice touch. After the planned orbital insertion failed, he found a return trajectory which got the spacecraft back to the target asteroid approximately one year later. Since the exact date had a week or two of flexibility, he arranged for orbital insertion with the asteroid 433 Eros to be on Valentine’s Day.
A number of years ago Bob penned a comment to one of my Space Review essays and we struck up an off-line e-conversation. He ended up sending along a draft of his autobiography, asking for comments. I gave him some extensive editing feedback on a few of the chapters which prompted my meeting him for lunch at the NASM in Washington. I was hoping for an editing job (IMHO I was potentially a near-perfect editor for him with my (albeit grossly inferior) background in orbit dynamics, my love of space history, and my editing skills).
While he appreciated my edits (I must admit I do not know if he incorporated many of them), he turned me down for the job because (at least he so said) he felt a strong press for time and didn’t think he’d last long enough to include the depth of the revisions I was suggesting.
While disappointed that I didn’t get the job, I treasured the opportunity to meet such a wonderful man and learn of his amazing accomplishments and wonderfully iconoclastic nature through his raw writing. I was saddened to learn that his anticipation of his own demise finally came to pass. [I think we would have had time…]
As noted, his targeting of the Eros rendezvous as a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife captures much about him. We have lost one of the greats.