Meteorology section

During two trips to Wisconsin in the summer of 1992,1 spent many hours interviewing Verner Suomi. He provided a lot of background and color to the early story of meteorology satellites. True to his experi­menter’s approach to life, he was at the time trying a novel therapy fol­lowing three heart operations. He had the same degree of curiosity about the experiment he was participating in as he had in his meteorological work.

Others interviewed for this section include

Dave Johnson, Robert White, Joseph Smagorinsky, Pierre Morel, P. Krishna Rao, Bob Sheets, Leo Skille, Bob Sutton, and Bob Ohckers.

When I interviewed P. Krishna Rao and Bob Sheets, I was considering writing a book that brought the story of meteorology satellites right up to date. In the end, that wasn’t possible but these interviews helped give me a sense of the evolution of the technology, and what I learned from them is, I hope, implicitly present in this section.