The spirit of the times

The decade of the 1950s was marked by an unusually good spirit of cooperation among the scientists who participated in the Great Space Endeavor. It was furthered by the spirit of common purpose and cooperation engendered by the IGY.

I was greatly impressed by the proceedings at the pivotal meeting of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel at Ann Arbor in early 1956. The summer before, the president had announced the goal of orbiting an artificial Earth satellite as part of the U. S. participation in the IGY. That presented a wonderful opportunity for many scientists to realize their long-standing dream: to observe our earthly home from well above the atmosphere.

One would have to admit that the possibility of participating in that grand adventure might have engendered a fierce competition with many negative aspects. That did not happen. Never once did I observe an instance of a scientist trying to gain a

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

foothold by attacking a potential competitor. The competition was marked by efforts by prospective participants to convince their research colleagues of the validity and superiority of their own ideas. When decisions were made, one way or the other, there was a willingness to proceed on that basis, with a minimum of backbiting and other destructive behavior. Never, throughout the entire period leading up to and including the IGY, did I observe a substantial instance of untoward selfishness, destructive competitiveness, or power brokering among the many established and emerging scientists with whom I was in contact.

The “let’s get on with the job” spirit enabled many amazing accomplishments. Excep­tionally short development times were possible that astound those looking back from the present vantage point. Explorer IV was planned, approved, and launched within a period of 77 days.

The spirit of the 1950s made it possible for individual graduate students to conceive of experiments, build the instruments, launch them into space, collect and analyze the data, and publish results during the few years of their university studies. Although that form of end-to-end experience can still be gained today with some balloon and rocket studies, it is rare with most of the current, more ambitious space experiments.

It takes years and even decades to develop some of today’s instruments. A large share of the difference must, of course, be attributed to the vastly different scale and complexity of the experiments. It is an inescapable result of the maturing and broadening of the field. As a result, today’s far grander instruments are bringing us a cornucopia of spectacularly beautiful and important revelations about the nature of the universe that could not otherwise be gained.

Despite today’s great capabilities, there remains a persistent longing by many of us “old-timers” for the relative flexibility and freedom that we enjoyed in that bygone era. The pressures during the 1950s were great, and we worked long hours, but it was a period of tremendous excitement and achievement.

For any researcher, and especially for a student, an environment in which the full spirit of the Sigma Xi motto “Companions in Zealous Research” prevails is a true blessing. Many of us benefited tremendously from that environment during those early years of the Space Age.