Isaiah Miguel Blankson (September 28, 1944 – November 19, 2021) was renowned for his breakthrough technical contributions and extraordinary intelligence as Aerospace scientist.
Isaiah Blankson was born in Cape Coast, Ghana on September 28, 1944. He had his secondary school education at Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, Ghana. He was the top student in West Africa in 1964 when he passed all of his exams at the GCE Advanced Level certificate examination. He received a scholarship to study in the United States (US) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he received his B.S. degree in 1969, M.S. degree in 1970, and Ph.D. degree in 1973, each in aeronautics and astronautics.
He became the first African to acquire a PhD in aerospace engineering after completing his studies. Blankson then joined the Xerox Corporation’s new Webster Research Laboratory in upstate New York where he worked with electro-hydro and gas dynamics. In 1982, he moved to General Electric’s Corporate Research Center to work on gas dynamics as they applied to high-power circuit breakers, lamp coatings, and hypervelocity projectile launchers.
In the mid-1980s, the US government renewed its interest in hypersonic vehicles for both missiles and access to space. In 1988, NASA hired Blankson to manage the agency’s new long-range program to develop technologies for air‐breathing hypersonic vehicles.
In 1997 Blankson transferred to the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio to serve as a senior technologist. He continued his work on propulsion and aerodynamic issues related to airbreathing hypersonic vehicles. Blankson led a team developing a magnetohydrodynamic bypass engine that would permit turbojets to operate at speeds up to Mach 7, and, inspired by penguins, conceived the concept of using laser pulses to reduce sonic booms of high-speed aircraft.
Throughout his career, he supported the establishment of research programs in an effort to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers in the profession, particularly those from under-represented minorities. He was instrumental in the establishment of hypersonics programs at three universities namely Syracuse University, the University of Maryland, and the University of Texas at Arlington all in the US.
He received numerous honors and patents from NASA for his work developing designs for high-speed air-breathing propulsion. His patent portfolio includes the Magneto-Hydrodynamic Power (MHD) Controlled Gas Turbine (U.S. patent 6,696,774-B1, 2004) and the Exoskeletal Gas-Turbine Engine (U.S. patent 6,393,831-B1, 2002). Furthermore, he was a co-author of a method (US Patent 9,016,632 B1) for decreasing shockwave strength on vehicles in supersonic atmospheric flight.
Blankson received numerous awards, including the 1969 Luis de Florez Award for excellence in engineering from MIT, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2002, National Emerald Honors Scientist of the Year Award in 2006, two Presidential Rank Awards: the 2006 Meritorious Senior Professional Award and the 2014 Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Senior Professional, the highest civil servant award granted annually by the U.S. government.
In 2018, he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal in recognition of his development of Nonequilibrium Plasma technology for aerospace and terrestrial applications whiles in 2019, he was selected as an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Fellow.
He died at age 77 on November 19, 2021.
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