Johny Russell of Murray, a 1948 and 1950 Murray State University alumnus, will soon receive an Honorary Doctorate of Science degree from MSU. A retired nuclear physicist for the Boeing Company, he has enjoyed a life and career out of this world. Russell engineered and developed components for milestones in American air and space travel such as the B-1 Lancer Bomber, the Saturn V Launch Vehicle and the original Lunar Roving Vehicle, better known as the Moon Buggy.

“It is a privilege for Murray State to celebrate Mr. Russell’s achievements by awarding him an Honorary Doctorate,” said MSU President Randy J. Dunn. “Mr. Russell continues to be an inspiration and a role model for MSU students nearly 60 years after he completed his first degree here. It is a unique point of pride for Murray State to claim such a distinguished alumnus.”

A graduate of the Murray Training School , Russell credits his mother Connie for devoting herself to her children’s education. The Russell family moved to Murray before Johny entered high school. His mother supported their family operating a boarding house, located where the former Owen’s Food Market building now stands. Ms. Russell cared for the MSU students who boarded with her like her own children. “We were all one big happy family and there was never a dull moment,” recalls Russell.

As a student at MSU, Russell has fond memories of fishing trips with good friend and former MSU president Harry Sparks. Favorite professors of Russell included Dr. W.E. Blackburn, Dr. A.F. Yancey and Dr. A. Carman. Russell was president of the Physics Club and member of the International Relations Club. At MSU, Russell met his wife and partner for life, Charlotte McNeely Russell, a MSU alumna who passed away earlier this year. The two met while Russell was helping Charlotte with her chemistry homework.

Before graduating from MSU, Russell served two years in the U.S. Air Corps. With a background in physics and engineering, Russell was assigned as an electronics and computer systems instructor for U.S. Air Corps pilots.

After graduating from MSU with an undergraduate degree in physics, mathematics and chemistry and a master’s degree in education, Russell was soon recruited as one of the first engineers at the Union Carbide Atomic Plant in Paducah.

In 1956, Russell was assigned to the project of reducing the amount of electrical power used by the Paducah plant. His solution to the problem was the Electrical Load Anticipator and Recorder, an invention for which he holds a patent. Advanced technology for its time, the device served as a digital computer that actuated an adding machine printer that produced a paper tape reading. In 1959, the invention saved the Paducah plant an estimated $100,000 a year in electrical costs.

Russell’s success at Paducah brought him job offers from across the country. While demonstrating his invention at a conference in Los Angeles , he was offered a position at the Bourne Instrument Design Co., based in Riverside , Calif. With Bourne, Russell designed computer systems for the U.S. Navy, data packages made to recover information from side winder missiles.

In Corona , Calif. , Russell worked with the U.S. Navy developing and testing computer censoring systems for missiles. “If I had an office, I didn’t know where it was,” said Russell, who often participated in missile field testing.

Most of Russell’s professional career was spent with Boeing Company. One of his first projects with Boeing began in the mid 1960s when NASA contracted Boeing to build stage-one of the Saturn V Launch Vehicle. First launched Nov. 9, 1967, the Saturn V was a multistage liquid-fuel expendable rocket used by 13 of NASA’s Apollo and Skylab programs. When Russell came aboard the Saturn V project, he and his colleagues were assigned to repair and reconstruct components of a rocket that had cracked on a previous mission. All 15 Saturn Vs were built between 1965 and 1975.

In the 1970s, Russell was one of the pioneer computer system developers for the B-1 Lancer Bomber project. The B-1 was intended to be a swing-wing bomber used for high-speed, low altitude penetration missions. Evolved from a series of studies in the 1960s, the project had President Nixon’s support in the ‘70s, with the first of the B-1As taking flight Dec. 23, 1974. Russell worked with flight testing of the four B-1As at Edwards Air Force Base in California . He was responsible for designing the computer systems that “told” the B-1 which direction to fly.

Russell is most celebrated for his work with NASA’s Lunar Roving Vehicle. Built in Boeing’s Kent , Wash. , facility, it was completed just 14 months after the contract with NASA was signed. The Moon Buggy was an engineering marvel. Resembling a golf cart, the original Moon Buggy seated two, was equipped with a color television camera able to send images back to Earth via satellite, averaged 10 mph, carried four times its own weight and had woven piano-wire mesh-like wheels to negotiate the strange lunar surface. Two 36-volt batteries powered the four one-quarter-horsepower electric motors in each wheel. Russell collaborated with other Boeing engineers on every component of the Moon Buggy. “We knew we were part of something special, and we knew we had to get it right,” said Russell.

The Lunar Roving Vehicles gave astronauts the ability to do three times the amount of work done on earlier voyages and it traveled to the moon folded up in a small storage space. The first launch of the Moon Buggy was July 26, 1971, with the Apollo 15 mission, and later the Apollo 16 and 17 missions.

When asked where the Moon Buggies are today, Russell replies, “I’ll sell you one; but you have to pick it up on the moon.”

Russell was recently contacted by the Discovery Channel and award winning British film director David Sington of DOX Productions. Sington plans to direct a six part television series for the Discovery Science Channel on the engineering stories behind the Apollo space missions. In the Shadow of the Moon , a feature length documentary film directed by Sington, is set to be released in theaters Sept. 7. The film tells the story of the astronauts behind the Apollo space missions.

Recently, Russell visited MSU’s campus for a tour of the industrial and engineering technology building. He also met with MSU engineering and physics students competing in the NASA Great Moon Buggy Competition. The competition is a national design contest where college students across the U.S. are given the task of designing and constructing a human-powered vehicle capable of carrying two students, one female and one male, much like the original Boeing designed lunar rover. Overseeing the project is Dr. Stephen Cobb, professor and chair of the MSU department of engineering and physics, and Dr. James Rogers, assistant professor in the department of engineering and physics.

Russell was encouraged by the student-built Moon Buggy and the students’ vivid interest in his work. “This is what it’s all about. It encourages me to know my own work and the work done by others years ago still fascinates their young minds,” says Russell.

Cobb says, “Mr. Russell’s visit was an honor for our student Moon Buggy team. They were able to speak with a designer of the original lunar rover and compare their engineering challenges and design decisions. Mr. Russell’s expertise brought history to life for our students who were not yet born during the era of manned lunar exploration.”

Cobb and the Moon Buggy team students plan to seek Russell’s expertise for this year’s competition in Huntsville.

After retiring from Boeing, Russell operated a computer system design and repair business in Huntsville , Ala. He and Charlotte later moved to Fort Walton Beach , Fla. where they spent most of their retired years.

In July of 2006, Russell moved to Murray after a fifty-plus year absence. He enjoys traveling, returning in March from a cruise around South America . At age 83, his adventurous spirit still allows him to ride his wave runner and enjoy a snowmobile ride. A pioneer in space and flight engineering, Murray State is proud to call Russell one of its own. Russell says, “I am honored and humbled that Murray State would consider my life and career worthy of praise and admiration. I’m here to help the university anyway I can.”

Russell is currently enrolled in Dr. Cobb’s laser physics class that meets on Mondays at 6 p.m. in Blackburn Science Building . “He is a welcome addition to the class, and his presence sends a positive message to our traditional students on the importance of life-long learning and staying engaged in the learning process,” says Cobb.

MSU Engineering Physics students admire Russell's

scrapbook of NASA Moonbuggy photographs.