James Van Allen: The First Eight Billion Miles - Biography of the Space Pioneer | Perfect for Astronomy Enthusiasts & Science History Readers

Ask young people today who James A. Van Allen was, and they probably don't even know that he was a discoverer of the Van Allen Radiation Belts surrounding our earth, and was the guiding force behind the rocket and saellite instrument packages that have explored Earth's near environment and later, our solar system and beyond. But his story far is more than that. From his humble beginnings in a small town in Iowa to international acclaim his story is that of a scientist whose motto was "It's a good day when you learn somemthing new." I was one of his physics advisees during the 1950s at the University of Iowa, and one of his teaching and research assistants. I remember him to be as good a role model as any physics student could want. He had not a trace of ego, was always supportive of students and diplomatinc in negotiating the minefields of his dealings with government agencies, as required for sustaining his research goals. Under the pressure of cold war politics and launch deadlines, he seemed to be an island of calm. His office door was always open, where he'd be found smoking his tradmark pipe (burning walnut-scented tobacco). Perhaps that pipe was a calming influence. When reminded of health effects of smoking, he replied that he had never heard of a pipe smoker who was convicted of murder.This excelent, thorough, biography draws together a wealth of detail from Van Allen's notebooks, interviews with his associates, and media accounts to tell his story in an engaging manner, yet, I can attest, one that is true to the facts and details. We learn of his early work in developing proximity fuses during the WWII, which greatly increased the effectiveness of naval guns, his early "shoestring budget" high altitude studies of cosmic rays and the aurorae using military surplus rockets and instrumentation built by students at the University of Iowa. Throughought his research he emphasized getting the job done in the most direct and cost effective way. It will probably surprise most readers to learn that the payloads of Explorer I, IV and subsequent satellites and space probes were designed, built and tested by students working at minimum wage in the sub basement of the physics building, with no security. And all the data from them was analyzed by a small army of students (grateful for employment and experience) using mechanical calculators, graph paper, and slide rules. Many of these students went on to research jobs in the space program. He was an outspoken champion of robotic-instrumented space missions, considering manned spaceflight a collosal waste of money with little return on the investment. The results of the past 50 years, in my opinion, justify that position, when we compare the wealth of information instrumented space probes have yielded about the earth, solar system and (thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope) the rest of the universe. While the maned space programs have yielded--hardly anything of scientific value.The author of this book, Abigail Foerstner, has managed the tricky task of telling a personal story and at the same time explaining the science clearly enough to give the reader an understanding and sense of its significance. This book is far more engrossing than one might expect from a scientific biography, and I suspect that it will appeal even to those who previously knew nothing about space science.Note: September 7, 2014, marks the one-hundredth anniversary of James Van Allen's birth. And there will be a celebration in his home town of Mt. Pleasant Iowa, where the Henry County Heritage Trust, as one of its projects, is working on establishing a museum at the Van Allen family home (moved from its original location), at 204 North Van Buren Street, 2-4 p.m.I recently moved to Southeastern Iowa and was astonished to discover that Prof. Van Allen not only grew up here, but earned his BS in physics at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mt. Pleasant. And a large part of my astonishment is that it took me almost three years to learn this. On the cover of Time magazine in 1959, you would expect big signs welcoming you to the area, "Home of James Van Allen". Instead, he is virtually unmentioned -- I think that his significance is so important that ironically, it is difficult for people to appreciate.This is the best book available about James Van Allen -- which is very sad, as he was a fascinating man, and a brilliant scientist, in a very pragmatic, Iowa sort of way. Not only that, the discovery of the Van Allen belts was a quantum leap forward in our understanding of the universe -- this dynamic, interactive, non-linear amazing place that we live in.He deserves a MUCH better book -- lots of books.This one is competent, but it is hard to read sometimes, jumping back in time without adjusting the tense of the verbs to help you realize that the author is back-tracking. The more important issue is that it is focused on the space race, which seems to have been motivated mostly by a combination of political and military rivalry (and paranoia), with only a very little curiosity thrown in. And which seems a little silly in retrospect, when the military significance of our "win" is insignificant compared to the changes that world-wide satellite communication networks have had on our world.And the significance of the discovery of the Van Allen belts is almost completely missing. That is the book I wish existed.It was good timing for this book to be published near the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik. It was Sputnik and the resulting American inferiority complex that made James Van Allen an instant, Time-cover celebrity. Van Allen was the physicist behind Explorer 1, America's first spacecraft, which discovered the Van Allen radiation belts. Of course it may be a measure of how distorted our perceptions were that even a radiation belt could become a symbol of national pride. To this day the only image that the public has of James Van Allen may be one photo of him and Wernher von Braun triumphantly holding up a model of Explorer 1 as if it was a football. This book offers a wider historical perspective on James Van Allen and his scientific accomplishments. It shows him to be a quintessential Iowan, a friendly and modest man. It shows his Explorer 1 fame to be one chapter of a long and productive career as a pioneering astrophysicist, in the first generation of scientists to have use of the tools of the space age. Van Allen spent decades building satellites and instruments for spacecraft, most notably the Pioneers that were the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter and Saturn. The greatest value of this book is that it adds to a seriously underpopulated shelf of books about 20th-century astronomers. It's almost a scandal how many important 20th-century astronomers have never had biographies written about them. Many of the biographies that do exist were written by fellow scientists who had little sense of storytelling or interpreting science. While there are plenty of biographies of space pioneers, most of them are astronauts and rocket builders. The scientists behind the space missions are much less visible. Fortunately the University of Iowa has respect for both physics and storytelling.Come per prodotti di questo genere è apprezzabile il download immediato. Un poco complicata la fruizione su un dispositivo che non sia un Kindle. Acquistato per mio figlioschnelle Lieferung,Artikel makellos