The Author

Fritz Miller

Fritz Miller is 88 years old. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics in June 1953 from the University of California at Berkeley. He immediately accepted a career assignment as a project mathematician at the United States Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) located at the Famous Edwards Air Force Base, California, where the Space Shuttle conducts safe recovery landings on Rogers Dry Lake Bed.

In the early years, as a project mathematician, he was a “trail-blazer” in the application of electronic digital computers for the reduction, computation and analysis of flight test data. He “pioneered” the ultimate modernization of the computer capability at the AFFTC and he not only contributed directly to the many historic successes at the Flight Test Center, but also many NASA “X Aircraft” at NASA’s facility now known as Armstrong Flight Research Center. In addition, he managed the Edwards Flight Test Range (EFTR) covering an extended area that spanned the West Coast to the Great Salt Lake Area located at Hill AFB, Utah. The use of the EFTR Range, under his steady management proved indispensable in supporting the highly successful historical Space Shuttle Program. He is one of the “fathers” in the development of the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), established primarily for Cruise Missile Testing and Air Force Combat Training.

The father of eight children, four daughters and four sons, in that order, lives with his wife, Dorothy, in Lancaster, CA.