Opening space research : dreams, technology, and scientific discovery

his book is a participant’s well-told and perspective account of the early days of scientific research in space, with emphasis on the role of the University of Iowa. The unique core of the book, Chapters 5-11, is the inside story of the development of the radiation instruments that were flown successfully on the first American Satellite Explorer I and its prompt successor, Explorer III, both in early 1958. The author, George H. Ludwig, then a graduate student in physics at the University of Iowa, was the central person in developing those instruments and in overseeing the decoding and tabulation of their in-flight data. His detailed narrative of this work has a special authenticity because of its dependence on his own meticulous records.

During 1955 and 1956, I prepared proposals for a comprehensive global and tempo­ral survey of the primary cosmic radiation above the Earth’s atmosphere. My proposal was accepted by the U. S. National Committee for the 1957-1958 International Geo­physical Year (IGY) on 12 May 1956 and was placed on the short list of potential payloads for early satellite missions. Initial funding was provided by the National Science Foundation and by my ongoing grant from the U. S. Office of Naval Research.

I specified the scheme of the instrumentation and selected the basic detectors, Geiger-Muller tubes, developed by Nicholas Anton of the Anton Electronics Labora­tories of Brooklyn, New York. The tubes were based on the earlier work of Herbert Friedman in introducing a small admixture of chlorine gas into an argon-filled tube, a so-called halogen quenched tube of “infinite” lifetime and stable operation over a wide range of temperature. Our adopted Anton type 314 tube had these properties and was of mechanically rugged construction.

During 1956-1957, Ludwig mastered the then new techniques of transistor elec­tronics and carried out the detailed design of the electronics for our instruments. He also designed a miniature, commandable magnetic-tape recorder for recording

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