Remembering Richard Passman

Age 94, Silver Spring, Md.
Passed away on April 1, 2020

He was an author and an Eagles fan, and a pitcher on a Navy baseball team, and helped build the plane that broke the sound barrier.

As a pioneer in the aerospace industry, Richard Passman was at the forefront of innovative projects. They included the Corona, the first U.S. spy satellite; the manned orbiting laboratory; the Nimbus weather satellite; and the SNAP-27 power system for Apollo missions to the moon.

“It powered all the instruments on the moon,” said his son Bill. “It’s still powering experiments probably on the moon that were left there.

“I was always very proud of him," he said. "I was born almost right after they moved to Philly, so my first 17 years were in Broomall. He had season tickets to the Eagles, so I thought everybody had VIP parking at the GE Reentry Systems building on Chestnut Street and you could walk to the games [at Franklin Field] from a block or two away.”

Mr. Passman, 94, died Wednesday, April 1, at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md., of complications from the coronavirus.

Say something about Richard...