Charles E. David Collection

Collection

Identifier: MC-64

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The collection contains handbooks, technical documents, artifacts, and a DVD that pertain to the life and career of Charles E. David. Topics covered include amplifiers, transistors, and diodes used in Apollo era electrical and communication systems.

Dates

Creation: 1960 - 1963

Creator

David, Charles E. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research in the Archives & Special Collections reading room. Handling guidelines and use restrictions will be communicated and enforced by archives staff members.

Conditions Governing Use

This material may be protected under U. S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) which governs the making of photocopies or reproductions of copyrighted materials. You may use the digitized material for private study, scholarship, or research. Though the University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections has physical ownership of the material in its collections, in some cases we may not own the copyright to the material. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in our collections.

Biographical / Historical

Charles Earl David was born in Evansville, Indiana on August 15, 1930, to Walter Earl and Evelyn Margaret Frease David. He grew up in Evansville scouting and playing football. He graduated from Reitz High School in 1948, and soon served in the U.S. Navy from 1950 to 1954. After serving, he joined the U.S. Submarine Veterans organization (1).

After his time in the Navy, Charles attended Evansville College (now known as the University of Evansville), where he earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He also became the president of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. While at Evansville, he also met Sue Downen, who became his wife in March of 1958 (1).

After graduating, Charles moved to Indianapolis, where he worked for the Naval Avionics Facility Indianapolis (NAFI), where he worked until 1961, when he moved to Huntsville to begin working for NASA on the Saturn program. With NASA, Charles worked as an electronics engineer in the Astrionics division as part of the Radio Frequency (RF) Systems Development Section (2). On this team, he helped develop the Saturn I digital command system that provided data to the ASC-15 guidance computer that was used for navigation calculations (2). He later received a $1000 award for inventing a secure frequency modulation communications system on a team with Lee B. Malone and Harold R. Lowery (3).

He was a member of NASA until 1964, when he transitioned to the Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal. He worked on the Arsenal until his retirement in 1985 (1). After retiring from the Army, he worked as a defense contractor until 1993. Throughout his career, Charles was awarded “five U.S. patents related to navigation and radar during his career” (1). He stayed in Huntsville, Alabama throughout the rest of his life and died on June 1, 2022.

Sources

[1] Charles E. David Obituary

[2] UAH Archives Charles E. David Collection, Box 1, Item 7 – “Checkout Procedures for Saturn Digital Command System (Using Core-Type Decoder)”, June 14, 1963

[3] UAH Archives Charles E. David Collection, Box 2, Item 2 – “Marshall Star”, Vol. 4, No. 2; Oct 2, 1963

Extent

1 Linear foot (2 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Charles E. David, 2011.

Processing Information

Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, and competing priorities. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections as they are acquired, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.