"The Tholian Web" Co-writer Chester L. Richards!

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Calling all Star Trek fans! Chester L. Richards, the co-writer of "The Tholian Web" episode of Star Trek, joins in the conversation, and it's fascinating!! Some of his stories are almost unbelievable like the story about almost being killed by the great potato, the Colorado River, a crocodile, a crazed gunman...

In this episode:

• What it was like when a rocket engine blew up
• Working with the royalty of the industry
• Meeting astronauts
• Making something that’s actually space-qualified
• What hooked him on science
• His UFO encounter
• SR71 planes
• UFOs or swarms of insects?
• How he came up with the Tholian Web
• What he thinks of William Shatner
• What he thinks about the newer Star Trek
• The closest to death he’s come
• How his wife’s eulogy affected him
• Losing his wife

About Chester:
Prior to retirement, Chester L. Richards was an Engineering Fellow at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems Division. At Raytheon he was Chief Architect for Advanced Concepts and Architectures. Before joining Raytheon Mr. Richards had an engineering consulting business. His diverse technology career spans half a century.
 
At the beginning of his professional life as a scientist, Mr. Richards invented and patented the first successful automatic focus sensor using real-time image analysis. It was used in aerial reconnaissance cameras.
 
Subsequently, while at the Ford Aerospace Corporation, Mr. Richards was Chief Engineer for Strategic Systems. At Ford he developed the flight instrumentation for the AGNT space flight and re-entry experiment. Mr. Richards invented and patented the Holographic Optical Element which is widely used in large aperture adaptive optics telescopes. Mr. Richards also invented, and successfully field tested, sub-resolution tracking techniques which improved tracking accuracy by two orders of magnitude.

During part of his career Chester L. Richards served as a System Engineering Technical Assistant (SETA) consultant to the U.S. Government. In this role Mr. Richards developed the modern Space Based Laser architecture for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. He was a member of SDIO’s Mission Analysis Working Group and its Innovative Science and Technology group. As SETA he helped define the functional architecture of Schriever Space Force Base and wrote the Statement of Work establishing the requirements for the base.
 
For the Air Force, Chester L. Richards created the definitive high fidelity sensor model for the DSP satellite series. In addition, he developed high precision target tracking techniques for the Hover Test Facility at Edwards Air Force Base.
 
At Raytheon one of his most important discoveries was the complete quantitative theory of bistatic radar, which previously had been only partially understood. This led to multiple fielded applications.
 
The technical interests of Mr. Richards include system architecture, space systems, physical optics, high energy lasers, image processing, radar, ergonomics, and jet and rocket propulsion.
 
Other activities include: Co-author of “The Tholian Web” s

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