Carl A. Wiley was an American mathematician and engineer born on December 30, 1918, in Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated in 1944 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Antioch College, followed by graduate coursework through the Ohio State University Extension Program. He began working at the Air Force Aircraft Radiation Laboratory at Wright Field in 1941, rising from an engineer to becoming the Section Chief of the Research Advancement Unit by 1949. From 1949-1953 he worked at Goodyear Aerophysics, where he invented the first Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). He then founded his own company, Wiley Electronics, where he worked from 1953-1963, followed by positions at North American Aviation, Rockwell International, and the Hughes Aircraft Company.

Wiley’s work on solar sails began in 1950, when he wrote an article proposing the use of solar sails as a practical means of space transportation. Solar sails are a form of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors, which provide force akin to wind on a sailboat, and can be used to change the course of a vehicle in space drifting without fuel. Wiley published his article, “Clipper Ships of Space,” under the pseudonym Russell Saunders in Astounding Science Fiction in 1951, although his article was a scientific article rather than non-fiction.

Wiley holds around 25 patents and applications in the fields of radar, antennas, radiometers, and solid-state devices. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1979, and became a Life Fellow in 1984. He passed away in 1985, and was survived by his wife Jean and two sons.