Alexander Kossiakoff was born on June 26, 1914 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He immigrated to the United States in 1923, and received a BS degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1936 and a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1938. Kossiakoff worked for the Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory during World War II, and in 1946 joined the staff of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). He became Director of APL in 1969 and remained in that role until his retirement in 1980. In this interview, Kossiakoff discusses how he came to study and work at Johns Hopkins and some of the major initiatives at APL during his tenure. In this interview, Kossiakoff discusses how he came to study and work at Johns Hopkins and some of the major initiatives at APL during his tenure. This oral history is a part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Kishin Moorjani was born in India. After working in France for a brief period of time, he became a theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory and worked there for more than thirty years. In this interview, Moorjani discusses the growth and development of the Applied Physics Laboratory. This oral history is part of the Mame Warren oral histories series.

Research Professor Paul Feldman has been affiliated with the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University since 1967. He is principal investigator of a NASA-supported sounding rocket program and has been responsible for over three dozen sounding rocket launches. Feldman received his PhD in physics from Columbia University in 1964. In this oral history, he discusses how his interest in astronomy developed and some of the highlights of his professional career. This oral history is part of the Hopkins Retrospective oral histories series.

Lynn Poole interviews Dr. S. Fred Singer, associate professor of physics at University of Maryland, scientific consultant on U.S. Air Force's FARSIDE project, and father of the earliest practical satellite, MOUSE (Minimal Orbital Unmanned Satellite). Dr. Singer lists the primary contributors to propulsion: Newton, Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, and Goddard. He explains that the technical aspects of a rocket include propulsion, guidance, payload, and reentry. Currently chemical propulsion systems are used to launch rockets, but other propulsion systems, such as iron, photon, fusion, and fission, are being studied. Dr. Singer sketches a diagram to explain how gravitational pull and velocity make a satellite orbit and notes that a velocity greater than seven miles per second results in "escape velocity" and non-return of the satellite. The purpose of basic research, he says, is to train young people, such as the University of Maryland students who designed and built Terrapin and Oriole rockets.