Benjamin Paul Blasingame (1 August 1919 – 13 November 2015) was a United States Air Force (USAF) officer and engineer who played an important role in the development of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and inertial navigation systems.

After the war he transferred to the USAF and earned a Doctor of Science degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Instrumentation Laboratory in 1950.

In 1959 Blasingame, resigned his commission and joined the AC Spark Plug division of General Motors, which later became Delco Electronics.

[1][3] Blasingame remained in the Army after the war, working in engineering positions, and he joined the United States Air Force (USAF) on its formation in September 1947.

[1][10] Blasingame's next assignment was as head of the newly created department of astronautics at the United States Air Force Academy.

[1] He told Clayton Knowles, a report for The New York Times that his aim was to "turn out future commanders of ballistic missiles squadrons — not space cadets...

[3] Blasingame resigned his commission in the USAF in 1959, and took a job at AC Spark Plug in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he became the director of engineering, and later the manager.

[1][3] AC Spark Plug was awarded the USAF contract for the development of the inertial navigation system for the Titan II ICBM in April 1959.

Blasingame contributed to the development of its inertial navigation system, which became the Delco Carousel, and also found civilian use in the Boeing 747, and USAF use in the C-5A Galaxy, the C-141 Starlifter and the KC-135 tanker.

[1]After retiring from Delco in 1979, Blasingame continued to serve on National Research Council committees that advised NASA on the development of helicopter technology.