R.I.P. - James Van Allen
Ever hear of the
Van Allen belt -- a band of radioactivity that surrounds the Earth?
The
guy that discovered it passed away today at 91.
He did a lot more than just the Van Allen Belt.
The
Iowa City Press-Citizen has a good obituary:
James Van Allen dies
James Van Allen, a pioneer in space physics and longtime University of Iowa professor, died early this morning at University Hospitals, UI interim president Gary Fethke announced today.
Reading from a prepared statement, Fethke said until his death, Van Allen remained an active member of the faculty.
"We and I will miss him greatly," said an obviously shaken Fethke, his voice quivering, before the opening of the Iowa state Board of Regents meeting this morning in Iowa City. "We extend our sympathies to the Van Allen family."
Regents president Michael Gartner called Van Allen "an Iowa treasure."
"It's a sad day," he said.
The article talks about his work:
Van Allen was responsible for no less than getting the United States into the space race at a time when the nation was terrified that the Soviet Union would conquer us from above.
It was Oct. 4, 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik, a 183-pound, basketball-sized satellite that became the first man-made object in Earth orbit.
The Soviets' triumph struck fear in the heart of the United States, and the government immediately took action not only to bolster its own efforts to reach space, but to improve math and science education in public schools.
Van Allen was hailed as a national hero when the United States struck back. This line is from the NASA article "Sputnik and the Dawn of the Space Age:"
"On January 31, 1958, the tide changed, when the United States successfully launched Explorer I. This satellite carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, named after principal investigator James Van Allen. The Explorer program continued as a successful ongoing series of lightweight, scientifically useful spacecraft."
The Van Allen Belts, as they are now known, remain a crucial area of study in space science, as evidenced by a recently announced, $100 million NASA project to study the effect of the belts on satellite communications and global navigation systems. The University of Iowa is the lead institution of the study.
The fact that UI remains at the forefront of space research is a testament to Van Allen as a teacher. As impressive as his own work is the work of UI space scientists Don Gurnett, Louis Frank and others who were all Van Allen protogés. Now, most of the university's top work is being conducted by a third generation of UI-grown space scientists.
And a bit more:
During World War II, Van Allen worked for the Navy developing proximity shells at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
After the war, Van Allen returned to his real passion: the study of cosmic rays. A cache of almost 100 captured German V-2 rockets allowed the most sophisticated study of the cosmos possible up to that time. Van Allen traveled to White Sands, N.M., where he built intricate instruments for the rockets that could fly up to 100 miles above the earth. That work began to establish Van Allen’s reputation as an expert in rockets and the study of space.
And more:
His work prompted President Eisenhower to invite the Van Allens to the White House, and on May 4, 1959, Van Allen was on the cover of Time magazine.
“In the race into space, the Russians can claim bigger satellites and more powerful rockets,” Time declared. “If the U.S. can retort that it has a big lead in scientific achievement, the man most responsible is James Van Allen, whose instruments, designed and largely constructed in his basement laboratory, brought back from space discoveries the Russians never made.”
Later, Van Allen also built instruments for Mariners I and II, which flew by Venus; Mariner IV, which explored Mars; and Pioneers 10 and 11, the first human-made spacecraft to reach Jupiter and Saturn.
In his later years, he became known as a staunch critic of human spaceflight, arguing that the cost and the dangers to human life were too high, and all research of any real value could be conducted by machinery and robots.
NASA heard the call. In the 1990s, the administration put a greater emphasis on smaller, cheaper, unmanned missions that yielded greater science and were seen as less of a failure if something went wrong.
That attitude led to the incredibly successful Mars Pathfinder missions, and severe public criticism of the costly International Space Station and President Bush's call for a manned mission to Mars.
Van Allen also was a critic of the space shuttle program. Following problems that plagued the July 2005 flight of the shuttle Discovery and in the wake of the February 2003 destruction of the Columbia shuttle, Van Allen described the program as “too expensive and dangerous.”
“It’s a vastly difficult effort with almost no significant purpose,” Van Allen told The Associated Press.
The quantity of "right stuff" on this planet just suffered a noticeable decrease. He was an original and will be missed.
Posted by DaveH at August 9, 2006 9:33 PM
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