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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Johanna Fallert

Dr. Richard A. Hartunian (born 6/8/1927, New York, NY; died 8/7/2009, Henderson, NV) held a series of positions at Aerospace Corporation before his retirement.
As VP of space launch operations, he certified readiness of more than 100 space launch vehicles and was responsible for development of the Inertial Upper Stage, Shuttle Launch Facility at Vandenberg AFB, and other DOD space activities. As General Manager of the Reentry Systems Division, he directed the Advanced Ballistic Reentry Systems Program and developed new reentry vehicle concepts and enabling technology in advanced materials, structures, and guidance systems; supervised flight test of full-scale prototypes of the new concepts at full ICBM range; and conducted more than 100 launches of test vehicles on Atlas, Titan II, and Minuteman I missiles.
Aerospace involvement in the area of ballistic missiles and reentry systems extends from 1960, when the corporation was founded, to 1979, when the last division engaged in ballistic missile activities was reassigned. Those two decades were the most dynamic in the Cold War era. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962, in which the Soviets deployed nuclear missile batteries in Cuba and threatened to launch them if the United States attacked the island, heightened tensions to an unprecedented level and increased the urgency of Aerospace work in ballistic missiles. President Kennedy's threat of a U.S. counterstrike against the Soviet Union and Cuba convinced Soviet Premier Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles, leading to a long era of d?©tente based on the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD).
Dr. Hartunian served as general chairman of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a board member of the Air Force Materials Laboratory's Mantech Program.