Book excerpt: Preface: Hot spot of innovation and invention -- A milestone in aviation history -- The formative years -- Back to MIT -- Aircraft instruments and the beginnings of the Instrumentation Lab -- From turn indicator to gunsight -- War work -- Directors and gun fire-control systems -- The A1-C(M) gunsight -- The "immaculate interception" and other air-defense activities -- Inertial navigation -- Floated gyros and SPIRE -- SINS : the submarine inertial navigation system -- Professor, prodigious worker, family man -- Inertial guidance for Atlas and Thor -- Titan, FLIMBAL, AIRS, and the MX/Peacekeeper -- Polaris -- Poseidon and trident -- Spy satellites and space planes -- To the moon and beyond -- The road to divestiture -- A heterogeneous engineer