He played basketball for the oft-maligned
Caltech Beavers men's basketball team while he got a B.S. from Caltech. He began his professional career at
Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (now the
Ames Research Center) in 1948, where he later became Director of
Astronautics. He left government service in 1980 to join the faculty at Stanford University. At the time of his death from cancer at age 73, he was Professor Emeritus of the Department of Aeronautics and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Chapman was internationally known for his research into
fluid dynamics, and for pioneering modern computational fluid dynamics. He is also remembered for his research and controversial theories on the origin of
tektites. ==External resources==