Myron "Mike" Lecar was born on April 10, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York. He received an S.B. in industrial engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1951 and an M.S. in industrial engineering from Case Institute of Technology in 1953. From 1954 to 1958, Lecar served as an officer in the U. S. Navy, developing and teaching
nuclear weapons technology and working on Project Vanguard.
Later he studied astronomy at Yale University and received his Ph.D. in 1963 carrying out some of the earliest computer modeling of stellar atmospheres. As a graduate student,
Lecar was one of the founding members of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University in 1962.
Acting on an invitation of Fred Whipple, Lecar joined the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in 1965. While at SAO, Lecar's research interests included gravitational
dynamics, planet formation, and the dynamics of our solar system. The author or co-author of more than 90 scientific articles, Lecar was also the principle investigator on
a grant from the Smithsonian Institution to collaborate with Tel Aviv University in the planning, construction and commissioning of the Wise Observatory in the Negev desert
in Israel. Before his retirement as Senior Astrophysicist in 2009, Lecar was a founding member of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative.
On May 30, 2005, Lecar married Rosemary Johnson in Belmont, Massachusetts after having been a part of each other's lives for some 27 years. At the age of 81, Lecar passed
away in 2011.
This accession consists of materials that document the professional and personal life of SAO astrophysicist, Myron Lecar. A significant portion of the records consist of
materials related to Lecar's work on the planning and construction of the Florence and George Wise Observatory in Israel. The other significant portion consists of personal
journals that Lecar kept that documented his personal life, his thoughts, and his interactions with the people around him. Materials include correspondence, memoranda, grant
proposals, reports, financial records, publicity materials, press releases, journals, brochures, images, curriculum vitae, clippings, and other related records.
