[Crater-team] Bern Blake passed away Saturday

[Mark D Looper]

Hello—

                I learned this morning that Bern Blake, who was part of the CRaTER team from the start, passed away on October 21.  Bern joined Aerospace when it was just a couple of years old, and stayed there his entire career.  He was my first manager when I started at Aerospace with the SAMPEX LEO satellite; his three- or four-fold successor Bob Rutledge did a better job summarizing his career than I’d be able to:

Bern received his B.S. in engineering physics and the M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1957, 1958, and 1962, respectively.  He joined the Space Sciences Laboratory as a member of the Technical Staff in 1962 and ultimately became the Director of the Space Sciences Department.  He became a Distinguished Scientist in 2005.  His professional activity included research on magnetospheric physics, auroral and cosmic-ray physics, and nuclear astrophysics.  His applied work focused on the interaction of the natural space environment with satellite systems, radiation damage effects, single-particle phenomena, and satellite anomaly analyses.  He led an almost uncountable number of experimental investigations of the space radiation environment from rideshares on CORONA reconnaissance satellite launches in 1962 to the NASA Van Allen Probes in 2012.   Bern authored or co-authored in excess of 1400 manuscripts with an extensive set of collaborators in industry, national labs, and universities both in the US and in Europe.  Bern’s impact on the field and all of us is immeasurable.

I remember his gruff sense of humor, and his impatience with bureaucracy; I can still hear him growling “it’s all bulls%*t!” about some imposition that he viewed as needless.  Lately I’ve been trying to bridge the gap between NASA’s “Open Science” policies and Aerospace’s security and IP rules, and I find myself channeling him sometimes, which I guess is the sincerest form of flattery.

“And he was a good friend.”
--Mark Looper

Mark D. Looper, PhD
Space Sciences Department
The Aerospace Corporation
M/S M2-260
P.O. Box 92957
Los Angeles, CA 90009-2957
Mobile: 310-529-3406
Voicemail: 310-336-6302
Publications: https://www.loopers.org/curvitae.html
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