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Cyber Warrior
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Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Posts: 10,256
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Cyber Warrior
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne
Posts: 10,256
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The death has been announced of Dr James Van Allen
Reported on Space Ref
Quote:
IOWA CITY, Iowa (Updated Wednesday, August 9, 2006 11:05 AM ) -- Dr. James A. Van Allen, U.S. space pioneer and Regent Distinguished Professor of Physics in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, died this morning, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006 at the age of 91. Arrangements are pending.
Though he retired from active teaching in 1985, he continued to monitor data from Pioneer 10 throughout the spacecraft's 1972-2003 operational lifetime and serve as an interdisciplinary scientist for the Galileo spacecraft, which reached Jupiter on Dec. 7, 1995.
The highlight of Van Allen's long and distinguished career was his use of UI-built instruments carried aboard the first successful U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958 to discover bands of intense radiation -- later known as the Van Allen radiation belts -- surrounding the Earth. It came at the height of the U.S.-Soviet space race and literally put the United States on the map in the field of space exploration.
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