[Infowarrior] - Physicist James Van Allen dies

[Richard Forno]

Physicist James Van Allen dies
Wed Aug 9, 2006 4:27 PM ET
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - American physicist James Van Allen, who helped propel
the United States into the space race and discovered the bands of radiation
that surround the Earth that were later named for him, died on Wednesday,
the University of Iowa said.

Van Allen, a longtime professor at the university, died from undisclosed
causes. He was 91.

He designed numerous instruments carried aboard U.S. space probes beginning
with the instrumentation and Geiger counters aboard Explorer 1. The
satellite went into Earth orbit January 31, 1958 -- four months after the
Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik I triggered unease about America's
scientific prowess.

The Explorer mission led to the discovery of a doughnut-shaped region of
charged-particle radiation encircling the Earth, now called the Van Allen
belts.

Long a critic of manned space flight, Van Allen called himself "a member of
the loyal opposition" in favoring using less expensive remote-controlled
spacecraft rather than astronauts to explore space.

Born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in 1914, Van Allen's early scientific
achievements included using rockets carried aloft by balloons to discover
electrons in the atmosphere believed to generate the Aurora Borealis, or
Northern Lights.

He would later place experiments aboard and monitor the progress of several
of the Mariner, Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini spacecraft.

"James Van Allen was one of the university's most influential and
best-regarded scholars of all time. Yet he remained the most unassuming and
caring man. We will all miss him deeply," University of Iowa Provost Michael
Hogan said.

He is survived by his wife, five children, and seven grandchildren.

© Reuters 2006.