Word: instruments
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Despite his candid partisanship, Van Allen's status as the best instrumentator of space was so indisputable by this time that he found himself commissioned to provide Vanguard's instrumentation. He dutifully set to work. But he took the precaution of finding out just what the Army had planned for its banned Explorer I satellite. The Army informed him that it had in mind a cylinder 6 in. in diameter. By no coincidence at all, the instrument package Van Allen produced for the 21-in. Vanguard sphere proved to be cylindrical, and just 5½ in. in diameter...
Explorer II splashed into the Atlantic early in March, but Explorer III was launched successfully on March 26. It contained a modified version of Ludwig's tape recorder-an amazing little instrument full of tiny, glittering parts that weighed only 8 oz. If it worked, it would gush out in five seconds all the cosmic-ray data from an entire orbit...
Next: Venus. Like most other scientists, Van Allen is in no hurry to put a man into space. "A man is a fabulous nuisance in space right now," he says. "He's not worth all the cost of putting him up there and keeping him comfortable and working." Instruments are lighter, tougher and less demanding, are sensitive to many things that human senses ignore. They already have memories (tape recorders), and they can carry computers that will permit them to make judgments. An instrument-manned Venus probe should be able to make observations and adjust its course by firing...
...Allen's instrument packages to measure radiation are much more complicated. Their sensing elements are Geiger tubes and scintillation counters that give brief electrical pulses when radiation particles hit them. Some of them are shielded with lead so that they will register only high-energy particles. Others are sensitive only to particles from one direction. The pulses from each instrument are fed to individual audio-frequency (audible sound) oscillators, changing the frequency of the pulses slightly. These modified audio tones are imposed on the high-frequency carrier wave sent out by the satellite's transmitter. Fed into...
Channel II came from a scintillation counter sensitive to radiation from one direction. Each wave records 2,048 particles above a certain energy level. Because the satellite is tumbling, the waves are spaced at varying intervals-closer together when the instrument points into the radiation, further apart when it turns away. Thus this channel tells both the radiation's strength and directional character, also indicates the rate of tumble, and the satellite's attitude at any given moment...