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My Father, Frank Joseph Malina (1 ), Was Born a Hundred Years Ago on October 2 1912 in Brenham,Texas.The Son of Czech Immigrants

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My Father, Frank Joseph Malina (1 ), Was Born a Hundred Years Ago on October 2 1912 in Brenham,Texas.The Son of Czech Immigrants My father, Frank Joseph Malina engineering practice. (1 ), was born a hundred years Engineering was often a trial ago on October 2 1912 in and error affair; Von Karman Brenham,Texas. The son of believed that you could make Czech immigrants, his parents things scientifi cally. My father were music teachers, but had went on to become a leading run grocery stores and a hotel; pioneering of American they wanted their son to be a Rocketry and, with Von Karman, musician. Music was a founder of NASA's Jet respectable profession; my Propulsion Lab. The team led by father went on to become a my father is credited with rocket scientist, a field that was launching the first human-made not respectable did not exist object into space. when he was born. When my father started working Brenham was a small farming on rockets he was a student; community and my father tells of his fellow students were all his boredom and finding refuge headed for the booming in the town library. There, among aeronautics industry, the other books, he read Jules internet of its ti me; they couldn't Verne and became infected with believe he would waste his the dream of space travel. And education on a field as absurd to go to space you had to make as rockets. Rockets were in things, invent things. such bad repute that they use the word Jet Propulsion rather My father majored in mechanical than the word Rockets. My engineering atTexas A and M father and a motley group of and went on to study students started making aeronautics at the California rockets. As a student group Institute ofTechnology, Caltech. they had no funding, just the There he started studying informed consent ofVon under Theodore Von Karman (2) Karman; their first funding came who has started one of the first in cash in a brown paper bag. experimental aeronautics labs, a Two of the crew, Jack Parsons wind tunnel and the and John Foreman (3), were Guggenheim Aeronautical amateur rocketeers; one an Laboratory. Von Karman is now amateur chemist, the other into recognized as one of the top white magic. They kept blowing research engineers of the things up on campus and twentieth century but as a became known as The Suicide young professor he had a lot of Squad and were forced to move resistance introducing scientific into an Arroyo. The group went reasoning and mathematics into on to found a leading aerospace the weight to propellant ratio; bulbs was too intense. He they carried scientific solved this problem in a classic experiments of novel rocket 'eureka' moment one fuels. For them, successful Christmas. We were at the making required the best dinner table and next to us was scientific theory, the best a Christmas tree with one of the mathematics and the best first available garl ands of prototyping and experimenting; flashing Chri stmas tree lights. In a scientific "making':The gro up the middle of dinner, my father disbanded. Ironically one of stood up suddenly, rushed to their team, Tsien Hsue-shen (5), the Christmas tree and grabbed was expelled from the US the lig hts to put them into his against his will and went on to kinetic painting. Problem solved. head the Chinese rocket program and became a As my father continued to member of the Chinese develop his kinetic paintings, he politburo. Little did Informant started studying psychology, Number 11 know how he would visual perception and cognitive change the course of history. sciences. He didn't understand why artists didn't use the theory Unable to continue working as a and science of perception to scientist, my father in midcareer help them in their art making. became an artist. When I was How could you use the science growing up I would come home of color and motion to create from school to find my father, specific moods?; what speeds the research engineer, painting were best suited for particular in our living room. As he kinds of artistic expression?; company, Aerojet General 11 claimed my father was a experi mented with various how did the brain integrate Corporation and was major communist and had tried to forms of painting, collage, sound and sight? Just as my contributors to what became delay the winning of the war. assemblage, and moire grids he father had applied mathematics the space program. They were Informant No 11 asserted that come obsessed with to rocket nozzle design he makers. my father insisted on doing too introducing real motion into his applied the most recent science many experiments and paintings, In the mid-fifties he to help him in his art making. During the McCarthy years in mathematical calculations started exhibiting what became There was a prevalent view that the USA my father got caught rather than just building and to be known as 'kinetic art' (6) artists should paint and not talk up in the communist red scare, firing rockets. My father had of and he became one of the or write about their work; there was indicted, lost his passport course learned this view of pioneers of that art movement . were even 'gate-keepers' known and lived as a refugee in Paris scientific making from Theodore He started putting light bu lbs as art critics who explained just as his startup company Von Karman.The group had and motors into his paintings to what the artists intended. My made him a millionaire. Th e FB I developed mathematic models make the pattern s move. To his father was aghast. As a scientist fil es of the period are now of airflow in nozzles to guide dismay his paintings would he had written about his ideas public (4); in these files there the design of larger and better sometimes burst into flames and his work, even though his are interesting interviews with ones; they did calculations of because the heat from the light avocation was not as awriter. "informant No 11 ·: Informant No multi stage rockets to optimize Oh Yes. And watch out for Why should he not, as an artist, publishing and curating work, Informant No 11. You never be able to write about his ideas enable in new ways the kind of know when he will kill your idea and discoveries? scientific making my father dead or maybe change the espoused. But the institutional My father went on to found the blockages for collaboration course of history to help create the Chinese Rocket Prog ram international art -science Journal between science, engineering and the Kinetic Art Movement. Leonardo (7) now celebrating its with art and design are still 45th year. Artists write about immense; un-necessary their work, explain their ideas roadblocks exist and new and document their discoveries opportunities stymied. References and Notes in the open literature; until then most artists kept their inventions Over the last two years, with 1. Frank Malina web site is at: http:// www.olats.org/ pionniers/ malina/ as secrets of the trade. For him funding from the U.S. National malina.php . A recent documentary provides an excellent overview: scientific making involved also Science Fou ndation, http://www.jp l. nasa. g ov /pod cast/content. cfm? content= 1029 collaboration with your peers discussions have been held 2. Theordore Von Karman: http://www.nas.edu/history/members/ and sharing your ideas. between scientists and karman.html engineers and artists and 3. Jack Parsons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Whiteside_Parsons > Today's hacker and maker designers. A network, SEAD (9), There is a voluminous literature of the many aspects of Parsons. cultures are inheritors of many is being set up to help identify 4. Excerpts from the Fran k Malina FBI files are available at http:// aspects of the ethos of roadblocks and opportunities, to malina.diatrope.com/frank-malina/frank-malina-fbi-files/ . scientific making that my father bridge the academic and non­ believed in. Use theory and academic, for profit and 5. Tsien Hsue-shen: see Iris Chang's book Thread of the Silkworm: http:// mathematics to short circuit un­ nonprofit research commun­ www. amazon. com/Thread-The-Silkworm-1 ris-C hang/d p/ 046500 67 8 7 necessary experimentation; ities, the formal and informal 6. Frank Malina, " Kinetic Painting : The Lumidyne System ", Leonardo, Vol. experiment and prototype hacker and make communities. 1, W 1, pp. 25-33 (1968) available at http://www.mitpressjournals.org/ doi/ abs/ 10.11 62/ leon.2007.40.1.81 . See also the book Kinetic Art: before building the real thing; The citizen science commun­ Theory and Practice : http://www.amazon.com/ Kinetic-Art-Practice­ share your problems and ities are beginning to have a real Frank-Malina/dp/048621284X discoveries with your col­ impact on the way science is 7. The Leonardo organisations, ISAST:International Society for the Arts, leagues; create ways for done and the direction scientific Sciences and Technology and OLATS: Observatoire Leonardo des Arts scientists and engineers to research will take; how can we etTechnosciences, have published the work of over 7000 new collaborate with artists and build flexible, evolving collabor­ Leonardos. Find their work documented at www.leonardo.info and designers; pursue your idea ation communities that bridge www.olats.org even if the Academy thinks it is disciplines and institutional 8. SEAD: network for Science Engineering Art and Design: http:// stupid (universities are frameworks ? . We have issued a sead.viz.tamu.edu/index.html conservative and change call forWhite Papers from 9. The Wh ite Paper call is at: http://sead.viz.tamu.edu/white_papers.html slowly); put together teams of members of the community (9) the best people, whether or not and will be forwarding a meta­ they have the right diploma; it analysis of all the recommenda­ sometimes helps to give your tions the various stake-holders.
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