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A New Zealander, Pickering emigrated to the U.S. in 1929 to study at the California Institute of Technology, where he got degrees in electrical engineering and physics. He was in the right place at the right time: the dawn of the space age. The U.S., anxious to make a quick response to Russia's successful launch of Sputnik, turned to Pickering, the director of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Just 83 days later, the successful 1958 launch of Explorer 1 not only ushered the U.S. into the Space Age, it did useful science: an onboard instrument discovered the Van Allen "radiation belt" around Earth. For his success, when JPL was transferred from the Army to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration, JPL was given the choice of heading either human or robotic space exploration; Pickering chose the latter. During his watch, JPL conducted an intensive series of space probes to the moon and Earth's neighboring planets -- truly a golden age of space exploration. He was JPL's director from 1954 to 1976, and was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Gerald Ford, an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II, and named to the Order of New Zealand. He died March 15 from pneumonia. He was 93. From This is True for 14 March 2004 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Martin Walt List Price: $50.00 Amazon Price: $46.70 Editorial Review: This book is an introductory textbook on the physical processes occurring in the Earth's radiation belts. The presentation is at the advanced undergraduate or first year graduate level, and it is appropriate for students who intend to work in some aspect of magnetospheric physics. The treatment is quantitative and provides the mathematical basis for original work in this subject. The equations describing the motion of energetic ions and electrons in the geomagnetic field are derived from basic principles, and concepts such as magnetic field representations, guiding centre motion, adiabatic invariance, and particle distribution functions are presented in a detailed and accessible manner. Relevant experimental techniques are reviewed and a summary is given of the intensity and energy spectra of the particle populations in the Earth's radiation belts. Problem sets are included as well as appendices of tables, graphs and frequently used formulas.An introductory textbook on the physical processes controlling geomagnetically trapped radiation aimed at first year graduate students specialising in any aspect of magnetospheric physics.  By: L.I. Miroshnichenko List Price: $125.00 Amazon Price: $125.00 Editorial Review: This book gives a modern picture of the Earth's radiation environment and dynamics of radiation conditions in the heliosphere. The present monograph, unlike the reviews published earlier, treats the problem in self-contained form, in all its associations - from fundamental astrophysical, geophysical, and biological aspects to technical, engineering, aircraft and astronautical applications. The monograph includes a large amount of new data on the main sources of natural radiation hazard (terrestrial radiation belts, solar cosmic rays and galactic cosmic rays), accumulated during the last several decades of space research. As a result of the "information burst" in space physics, there are a lot of new interesting theoretical concepts, prediction models and ideas that deserve attention. The author gives an extensive bibliography, which covers impartially the main achievements, failures, problems and prospects in this field. The book will be helpful for a wide audience of space physicists, designers, engineers and other specialists in the practical cosmonautics (astronautics). It also will be relevant for a number of graduate courses on solar physics, geophysics, solar-terrestrial physics, and other branches of space research. Van Allen belts: An entry from Thomson Gale's Gale Encyclopedia of Science, 3... By: James A. Van Allen List Price: $2.45 Amazon Price: $2.45 Editorial Review: The ?Gale Encyclopedia of Science? is written at a level somewhere between the introductory sources and the highly technical texts currently available. This six-volume set covers all major areas of science and engineering, as well as mathematics and the medical and health sciences, while providing a comprehensive overview of current scientific knowledge and technology. Alphabetically arranged entries provide a user-friendly format that makes the broad scope of information easy to access and decipher. Entries typically describe scientific concepts, provide overviews of scientific areas and, in some cases, define terms. Guide to Modeling Earth's Trapped Radiation Environment By: AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics List Price: $42.95 Amazon Price: $42.95 Radiation Belts: Models and Standards (Geophysical Monograph) List Price: $55.00 Amazon Price: $55.00 |
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