Dr. Van Allen
A fond farewell to Dr. James Van Allen, who died today at the age of 91. Van Allen just about single-handedly gave birth to the field of magnetospheric physics, the field in which I pursued my graduate studies. He discovered the Earth's radiation belts, regions near the Earth where energetic ions and electrons are trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. The discovery was made with a simple Geiger counter placed on the first United States satellite in 1958, Explorer I. While the United States was trying to respond to the Soviet success of Sputnik, the discovery of the radiation belts ushered in an entirely new field of geophysics.
James Van Allen also distinguished himself for being a vocal critic of manned space exploration. He believed that space exploration was more cost effective and scientifically rewarding when done robotically. While there is some legitimacy to this stance, I think a recent example shows how valuable human presence is in space exploration. I attended a symposium for work last year and one of the key note speakers was a staff scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover program. He showed how the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have provided an enormous amount of robotically acquired data that will keep scientists busy for years to come. However, he made sure to point out that all the science performed robotically by the rovers in 1 year on Mars could have been done in about an hour by a human. That's a sobering number, and it illuminates the incredible power of the human eye, human mobility in uneven terrain, and of course the human brain. Certainly robotics is making leaps and bounds in the approximation of human capabilities, but in the end the only way we can truly know a new environment is by going there and letting it engage our senses, our logic, and our wonder. We are currently heading into a period of more aggressive human space exploration that will require unprecedented financial and time commitments. Time will tell if Van Allen's approach to space exploration wins out in the end.
