Robert Bono (1936-2019) grew up in Louisiana, Missouri. His earliest inspiration to aerospace engineering came as a young boy during World War II, when he was given a toy glider made by an inmate at the prisoner of war camp on the outskirts of town. He went on to earn a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy and did his graduate studies in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Washington-Seattle.
Bob’s professional career began at The Boeing Company as a design engineer responsible for mechanical and structural design of ground support equipment and systems engineering on space vehicle projects. He then advanced to research engineer and group lead for research and development of trajectory analysis and design techniques for the Saturn V Apollo Moon Landing Program. Later, as Senior Engineer with Northrup Services in Huntsville he was responsible for launch trajectory simulation and performance calculations to support Space Shuttle mission planning.