Henry Thomas Sampson Jr. (April 22, 1934 – June 4, 2015) was an American engineer, inventor and film historian[1] who created the gamma-electric cell in 1972 — a device with the main goal of generating auxiliary power from the shielding of a nuclear reactor.
He then attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, before transferring to Purdue University, where he became a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
Sampson also served as the Director of Mission Development or Operations of the Space Test Program at the Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California.
During his time with the Aerospace Corporation, Sampson led an engineering staff in the development and operation of several space satellites.
[6] As the director of Aerospace Corporation, he worked extensively in the evaluation of various power sources for creating high-power satellite programs including nuclear, photovoltaic, and magnetohydrodynamic.
The Air Force needed technical support from Sampson and his group to launch 13 low Earth-orbit satellites.
In 2005, he published Singin' on the Ether Waves: a Chronological History of African Americans in Radio and Television Programming, 1925–1955 (two vols, 1270 pages), Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2005.