Rear Admiral Caleb Barrett Laning (born 27 March 1906, Kansas City, Missouri; died 31 May 1991, Falls Church, Virginia) was a highly decorated naval officer, writer, and technical adviser. He was involved in the development of the U.S. naval Combat Information Center (CIC) during World War II. The idea was taken "specifically, consciously, and directly" from the spaceship Directrix in the Lensman novels of E. E. Smith, Ph.D., and influenced by the works of his friend and collaborator Robert Heinlein, but for bureaucratic reasons the source of the idea was not disclosed.