Collegial interactions

One of the most important features of research in the 1950s was the highly supportive network of collegial relationships that existed on the local scene, nationally, and internationally. Larry Cahill accurately characterized the working of our small, tightly knit cosmic ray group when he wrote:

George, Carl [McIlwain], Ernest [Ray], and I were graduate students; Frank [McDonald] and Kinsey [Anderson] were post-doctoral research associates. We worked in close proximity in the basement of the old Physics building, discussed our work and problems, went to lunch and coffee breaks together, and shared a sense of challenge and excitement as we prepared to go out and make measurements. Frank and Kinsey managed the lab and the students and were very accessible for advice. In overall charge of our enterprise was Professor James Van Allen, self-described as the “scoutmaster.” He determined the direction of the research and found support. He also provided the graduate students with research projects. He was busy with teaching and administrative duties, as Department Head and director of the research lab, but was always available for advice on major problems and for long-term guidance.

Of the greatest value for research training was his policy of giving each student as much responsibility as the student could handle.2

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Equipment development was done in a crowded room about 60 feet square in the south end of the Physics Building basement. Various of us gathered for frequent informal discussions. Lunch provided a special opportunity for taking stock and exchanging ideas. It was a fairly regular practice for someone to cruise the halls as lunchtime approached to see who wanted to go out on that day. Collecting a group of three or four, we frequented nearby places such as the Jefferson Hotel Dining Room and Joe’s Bar. The lunchtime discussions usually focused on our work of the moment, with strong emphasis on the interpretation of data.

Departmental colloquia and seminars served as more formal and broader venues for exchanging information. In addition to giving us the opportunity to expose, defend, and debate our own ideas, they were a means by which we kept up to date on the work of the other students, faculty members, and visiting scientists.

The value of that environment cannot be overstated. Information flowed freely, with no thought of hiding ideas to protect individual intellectual property rights. That cooperative spirit was promoted by Van Allen’s and the other senior faculty mem­bers’ scrupulous attention to recognizing all contributors when publishing scientific results.

It should be added that in spite of the spirit of openness and professional collegiality, there was always an appropriate distinction between faculty members and students. After all, they were helping to train us, and were always responsible for correcting our errors and judging our progress.

Attendance at off-campus professional gatherings was well supported. Nearly every­one, faculty and students alike, whose paper was accepted for a conference was able to attend. Students sometimes went, even if they were not presenting papers, when the agenda was closely related to the person’s research.

The most active professional societies during that period were the American Geo­physical Union (AGU), American Physical Society, and (of special interest to me) the Institute of Radio Engineers (now the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engi­neers). Other conferences of special note were sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, especially during the planning, conduct, and follow-up to the International Geophysical Year (IGY).

AGU was especially important, being by far the most helpful in fostering the exchange of early space research results. The organization quickly published pa­pers and letters containing early space research results in its Journal of Geophysical Research. At first, AGU’s periodic and special conferences were accommodated in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences. Within a short time af­ter the beginning of the IGY, the expanding conferences were split between that venue and the neighboring State Department auditorium. Overlapping sessions soon

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became necessary. Even then, it was still possible for a person to know most of the attendees.

To this day, I look upon AGU with special fondness and consider it my home professional society.

Another venue for interaction deserves special mention. As stated earlier, cosmic ray research was remarkably vigorous long before the IGY. In the United States, most cosmic ray research was centered on a few university campuses and in several defense laboratories, with a strong concentration in the midlands.

In response to a perceived need for increased intercampus discussion, Marcel Schein of the Ryerson Physical Laboratory of the University of Chicago organized the first Mid-West Cosmic Ray Colloquium in 1948 or 1949. One of Van Allen’s first acts upon his early 1951 arrival in Iowa City, working in close collaboration with Schein, was to plan and host the second of those meetings. That occurred on 7 April 1951, only a few months after his arrival. Other leading organizers of the earliest colloquia included Enrico Fermi and John A. Simpson of the University of Chicago; Edward P. Ney, John R. Winckler, and Phyllis P. Freier of the University of Minnesota; and J. G. Retallack of Indiana University.3

After 1956, those meetings were referred to as conferences instead of colloquia, in recognition of their expanding scope and audience. Throughout their lifetime, the stated purpose of the Mid-West Cosmic Ray colloquia and conferences was to involve the various active research groups in informal exchanges on the latest progress in the field and to discuss interpretive ideas. Although the early emphasis was on cosmic rays, the conferences broadened over time to include most of solar system particles and fields research, as that field blossomed during and following the IGY.

The very earliest colloquia were fairly leisurely, one day affairs, but they quickly grew to occupy two very crowded days. They typically included a series of substantial prearranged addresses by senior researchers, followed by extended open discussions. Those were accompanied by numerous short communications on current progress by attending researchers, including students. Later meetings tended to be more topically organized. The conferences were informal, with only sketchy agendas and no written proceedings. Papers were generally noncitable—in fact, most of the presentations were made from brief notes and lantern slides, and full manuscripts were rarely distributed.

As far as I could determine, the series ended with the colloquium at Iowa City in 1968, by which time the subject matter was being increasingly assimilated into the agendas of the AGU and other professional societies.

Those conferences played an especially important role for us students by helping us learn how to put information together and present it in a cooperative and supportive

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environment. They also helped to establish a spirit of collegiality, helpfulness, and adventure within an extended but focused group of researchers. To my knowledge, that type of regular, relatively informal intercampus information exchange has never since been replicated in the space research arena.

The work during those early years involved our close association with three major government-supported organizations: the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in the District of Columbia, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) at Huntsville, Alabama; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. My rela­tionship with all three continued throughout my professional career, as they became major components of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when it was formed in October 1958.

There were subtle differences in the attitude conveyed by the three organizations. The Huntsville group, under von Braun’s leadership, was clearly consumed by the idea of getting into space, regardless of who got the credit. At one point, they offered to use their Jupiter C vehicle as a Vanguard launcher, even to the point of putting the word Vanguard on its side. They yielded their interest in building the first Explorer satellites to JPL, even though they had completed substantial initial design work at Huntsville. Throughout that period, Von Braun insisted that the questions of roles and missions was secondary to the end goal of launching satellites.

The NRL personnel were equally generous. Although they had gained official authorization to launch the first U. S. satellite, they provided great assistance to the Army program once it was approved. That included teaming up on data recovery, tracking, orbit determination, data processing, and the sharing of electronics know­how. It even included providing satellite transmitter and receiver designs and hardware for the Army efforts.

The people at the JPL were more guarded. We admired their capabilities, but, as inferred in Chapter 9, they wanted it known that they were the satellite builders. Whereas the Vanguard and Huntsville people regarded us at the university as true partners, JPL tended to look upon us as suppliers. In our long-term dealings with those three organizations and their later NASA embodiments (the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville; the Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Maryland; and JPL in Pasadena), Marshall and Goddard have been more willing to accept experimenters’ instruments as submitted, as long as they passed all of the mu­tually agreed-upon tests. JPL, on the other hand, tended to look upon the instru­ments as objects procured under contract and subject to their own full engineering oversight.

In summary, JPL possessed a stronger measure of “institutional arrogance” than the others. Having said that, we experimenters developed many long-lasting and highly rewarding relationships with the JPL people.

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