His optical shop produced prototypes in connection with flight testing of Voodoo and Phantom fighter planes, as well as for the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft.
Cox became a member of the office staff; while there, he started reading proof for planetarium director Clyde Fisher's new astronomy magazine The Sky beginning with its November 1937 issue.
[3] When Earle Brown stepped down as conductor of Sky and Telescope's "Gleanings for ATMs" column in 1956, Cox took over the department, which he ran until December 1977, for a total of 254 installments.
The columns contained practical telescope making ideas, shop techniques, and wisdom drawn from his professional career as an optical engineer.
There is only one important requirement - that the optics be of first quality, capable of giving satisfactory views of the moon, the sun, double stars, cluster, nebulae, and the planets.
Cox died of emphysema, contracted apparently from frequent on-the-job exposure to extremely fine glass particles produced by high-speed shaping machines with diamond-impregnated cutting tools.