
James Van Allen
The First Eight Billion Miles
Abigail Foerstner(Author)
University of Iowa Press
Will be published approx. on 1. June 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
396 pages
978-1-58729-795-3 (ISBN)
Description
Astrophysicist and space pioneer James Van Allen (1914-2006), for whom the Van Allen radiation belts were named, was among the principal scientific investigators for twenty-four space missions, including" Explorer I" in 1958, the first successful U.S. satellite; "Mariner 2"'s 1962 flyby of Venus, the first successful mission to another planet; and the 1970s "Pioneer 10" and "Pioneer 11" missions that surveyed Jupiter and Saturn. Although he retired as a University of Iowa professor of physics and astronomy in 1985, he remained an active researcher, using his campus office to monitor data from "Pioneer 10"--on course to reach the edge of the solar system when its signal was lost in 2003--until a short time before his death at the age of ninety-one. Now Abigail Foerstner blends space science drama, military agendas, cold war politics, and the events of Van Allen's lengthy career to create the first biography of this highly influential physicist.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Iowa
United States
Illustrations
52 photos
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
553 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-58729-795-3 (9781587297953)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Abigail Foerstner teaches science writing and news writing in the graduate program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She is the author of Picturing Utopia: Bertha Shambaugh and the Amana Photographers (IOWA 2000) and of hundreds of articles on science, history, and the visual arts. As a staff reporter for the suburban sections of the Chicago Tribune, she covered science and the environment for nearly ten years. She spent seven years researching and writing James Van Allen: The First Eight Billion Miles.