In the meantime here are the overview documents. They are super hi-res scans and total 14mb size for everything.
It does not mention the lens, but I honestly remember that was the core component mentioned in article and dad mentioning.
http://7dust.net/0100.jpg
http://7dust.net/0101.jpg
http://7dust.net/0102.jpg
They are referring to a specialized cel animation technique. The patent you posted refers to some kind of special jig designed to allow more flexible positioning of the cels which would allow adding depth/shadows to the animation. They don't mention any kind of special lens.
If your father really was cheated out of this patent somehow, my condolences. However, I doubt anyone (especially NASA) has seriously used this technology in the past 20 years. Computer animation has made it completely obsolete.
I do a lot of graphics work - I don't think people have used this tech in significant productions. Disney never used more than a few levels of cel. It sounds like your father's notes are talking about a gizmo called a "Multiplane Camera" - which does indeed have a special lens. It came in two versions - however, Disney used both versions of this tech in films they made in 1935 and 1937 - and it was featured in the film "Pinnochio" in 1940.
So your dad clearly had no influence on that.
Next came the influence of Xerography in the 1950's (effectively allowing them to photocopy backgrounds in composition to avoid having to repaint things)...which meant that they didn't need all of the layers your Dad seems to have imagined they'd want to have.
The technology of making cartoons didn't change again until 1985 when a photographic/chemical process was added (doesn't sound like anything your dad did - and if they stole his work in the 1970's then why would they sit on it for 15 years?).
By 2002, they used computers for compositing and cel animation became a thing of the past.
It's hard to tell what happened here - but I think you're wrong to imagine that Disney stole something incredibly amazing and then made a fortune out of it.
The state of animation didn't change significantly from 1950 until 2002.
NASA has had computer animation since almost the very start. The guy who did the animations for the Voyager mission (Jim Blinn) is a good friend of mine - he was working on that using 100% computer-based techniques a couple of years before the probe was launched...so that would have been around 1975. Prior to Voyager, there were no significant animations used by NASA.
So I don't believe NASA stole a damned thing...they had no need of cel animation...they didn't use it.
If you ever find that Newspaper article, it would be interesting to find out what your Dad's breakthrough REALLY was and to track what happened to it.