CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Simon Ostrach was a "Superstar" at NASA and the founding director of a space research institute at Case Western Reserve University. He was also the oldest person ever to fly in reduced gravity, and his son and granddaughter made similar flights.
Ostrach died Monday at home in Pepper Pike at age 93.
"He made great strides by reducing complicated problems to their essence," recalled Joe Prahl, who succeded Ostrach as chairman of fluid, thermal and aerospace sciences at Case Western Reserve University. "He used to say, "Simplify the problem, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater,'"
Ostrach grew up in Providence, R.I., and earned a bachelor's degree, two master's and a doctoral degree there from Rhode Island State College and Brown University. He worked at what's today NASA Glenn Research Center from 1944 to 1947 and 1950 to 1960.
He studied warplanes and turbojet and turboprop engines. He helped develop an early supersonic wind tunnel. He also researched heat transfer and fluids in low gravity, developing important techniques for nuclear propulsion, space flight, microelectromechanical devices and the crystals in semiconductors.
NASA named him one of 12 superstars of modern aeronautics. In 2015, he was one of three "giants of heat transfer" in the first class of NASA Glenn's Hall of Fame.
Ostrach was a professor from 1960 to 2005 at what became Case Western meanwhile. He developed interactive experiments that flew on Space Shuttle Challenger in 1992 and 1995.
"The experiments were both pioneering and very successful," a NASA article quoted him as saying.
Ostrach flew several times on the future Glenn's notorious "Vomit Comet," which plunges 40 to 60 times in 2 1/2 hours, producing about 25 seconds of weightlessness each time. He made the last flight at age 81, four years older than John Glenn at the time of the astronaut's last trip to space.
In 1997, Ostrach founded an intercollegiate institute at Case Western that became the National Center for Space Exploration Research. In retirement, he taught at Florida State University.
He earned four honorary doctorates and served as home secretary for the National Academy of Engineering. The University of Rhode Island and Florida State University named professorships for him.
On the side, Ostrach wrestled successfully in high school and refereed the sport at colleges for 25 years. He also won sailing races at Edgewater Yacht Club and cruised Lake Erie for a week in many Augusts with Prahl, his Case Western colleague.
Ostrach lived in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights and Pepper Pike. He had five children with his first wife, Gloria, then outlived his second wife, Margaret. Among several scientist descendants, his late son Louis spent many years with NASA.
A funeral will take place at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8, at Park Synagogue East. Berkowitz Kumin Bookatz is handling his arrangements.