[FPSPACE] Farewell to Fred Whipple

[Saunders B.Kramer Sr.]

Alas, we shall miss Fred Whipple. As nice a person as one would ever 
want to meet.  Some time ago (in the late 50's) Fred had 
calculated/theorized that spacecraft would be struck by a hail of 
meteoroids but after several birds had been placed in orbit with 
hit-counting devices aboard he recognized that his work was off by a 
factor of 10,000 (too high). Everyone (especially Fred) was pleased to 
learn that the meteoroid environment was considerably more benign and 
Fred would tell that to us at a number of conferences.  I was involved 
in studies of protection devices as was Fred and as everyone knows his 
meteoroid shield ideas have been used forever. Of course there have 
been modifications to improve such protection, developed at almost 
every outfit involved in designing/building spacecraft.
Saunders B. Kramer
On Aug 31, 2004, at 2:15 PM, MattWriter at aol.com wrote:

> Fred Whipple, who originated the "dirty snowball" theory of comet 
> composition, died at 97.  Whipple continued to be an active scientist 
> until the age of 95, when he was an investigator for a NASA cometary 
> mission called CONTOUR, which unfortunately suffered mechanical 
> failure and never went beyond Earth orbit. 
>  http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2004-08-31-whipple_x.htm
>
>  Respectfully, Matt 
> Bille_______________________________________________
> FPSPACE mailing list
> FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
> http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace
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