the national academy of science awards prestigious physics medal to atmospheric sciences professorjan 30 2015a texas a&m professor is to be honored by the national academy of sciences with the award of the arctowski medal for his notable imagination in framing many of space sciences most basic concepts about the expanding solar atmosphere and the interplanetary magnetic field and their interactions with the magnetic fields of earth and other planetsalexander dessler adjunct professor in the department of atmospheric sciences and professor emeritus at rice university is being recognized for his outstanding contributions to the study of solar physics and solar terrestrial relationships as a teenager in california dessler did not set out to be a renowned physicist i liked tinkering with cars he said figuring out how engines work i think i would have been perfectly happy being an auto mechanic he served in the us navy at the end of world war ii as an electronics technician on a destroyer where radar technology captured his imagination i was fascinated by radar the idea that electromagnetic waves pulsing through the atmosphere allowed you to see objects far away he said the gi bill allowed dessler to attend caltech for his undergraduate degree in physics he received his phd from duke in 1956 a decade after the cold war had started and one year before sputnik was placed in orbit jobs for physicists then werent in the universities but in the defense industry he said my first job was with lockheed aircraft it was a great time to be a space physicist aerospace companies receiving government contracts had to spend 1 percent on unrelated research we could be completely theoretical we were free to do anything dessler speaks about how little was known about space before rockets and satellites were able to get out there and make measurements at first it seemed that every rocket carrying any instrument in any direction away from earth made a discovery we found the suns atmosphere was not stationary; rather it explodes into interplanetary space at speeds of about a million miles per hour this hot solar gas strikes the magnetic fields of earth and other planets to distort them and create spectacular phenomena like the van allen radiation belt and the polar aurora it was a golden age discoveries abounded and money for research was easy to obtain before sputnik was launched only a few people were studying space physics because i had started a year earlier he said i was one of these few the field was rich and not crowded as spacecraft data poured in there was opportunity to make imaginative suggestions that when correct were useful in guiding future research when i came up with an idea on what was going on i often got to name features that were needed to understand the phenomenon that had been observed overall it was fun and unimaginably rewarding i had been incredibly lucky to have been born at the right time and to have made a number of coin-flip choices that mostly came up heads he said dessler will be honored in a ceremony on sunday april 26 during the national academy of sciences' 152nd annual meeting for more information about the award see these sitesnational academy of sciencerice university dr alexander dessler