Ralph Belknap Baldwin

Prior to his lunar work he was Senior Physicist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory during World War II working on the proximity fuze. In 1947 he began working for Oliver Machinery Company. In 1970 he became president of the company and chairman of the board in 1982. He retired in 1984. He died on October 23, 2010.

Early life

Baldwin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, receiving his B.S. in 1934, M.S. in 1935, and Ph.D. in 1937, on the "spectroscopic study of novae". After graduation, he taught astronomy at the University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern University from 1935 through 1942. The photographs at the Adler Planetarium, where he lectured to earn extra money, sparked his interest in lunar craters. This led to an article in Popular Astronomy in 1942 and later his book The Face of the Moon, in 1949. During World War II Baldwin helped to develop the radar proximity fuze. He published a history of proximity fuze development in 1980 entitled The Deadly Fuze.